Ah, the good old days of U.S Foreign Policy

Whose picture should be on our currency?

Our currency in the U.S. (often known in the black community as "Dead Presidents") honors people who won wars.  Andrew Jackson killed a lot of Indians.  General Grant killed a lot of Confederates.  Franklin Roosevelt killed the economy. 

We should commemorate people who spread liberty and freedom. 

Don Boudreaux (who should be on a commemorative penny, at least) has come up with a list of people who we should honor on our Federal Reserve Notes and our debased coinage. 

Here's his list.  It's greatness.... !

$1 bill: George Washington.  For all of his flaws, Washington was not as mad for power as is the typical politician.  That character trait was enormously beneficial to the early American republic.

Ok.  Agreed.  They wanted him to be king, and he declined.  Although I sometimes think we would be better off with some hereditary despots who relied on promoting freed, as opposed to the current system of beauty contests. 

$2 bill: Henry Ford, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

I dunno.  Towards the end of his life, he became increasingly anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-liquor, 3 concepts that I like a lot. 

$5 bill: John D. Rockefeller, Sr., for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

He added hundreds of hours of light (via kerosene) at increasingly lower prices to the common man.  You could make the argument that Rockefeller saved the whales !!

$10 bill: Gustavus Swift, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Ok.  Good choice. 

$20 bill: Norman Borlaug, for saving countless millions of people from starvation.

Excellent choice.  He developed new strains of wheat (and was harshly criticized by many on the left, because it would increase population!) and probably saved a billion (with a "b") lives. 

$50 bill: Sam Walton, for being such a pioneering and innovative retailer.

Wouldn't that make the Statists go just absolutely batshit crazy?  Sam Walton helped bring one million people per month out of bone-grinding poverty in China.  He did more than anyone in history to hold down inflation in the era of the Fed.  He's the reason the jeans I'm wearing now cost less than they did in 1977.  Here's why he deserved a Nobel !!

$100 bill: Benjamin Franklin, for his scientific achievements and his bourgeois wisdom.

Meh.  Interesting guy, but I'd rather see Calvin Coolidge (greatest president) get a spot. 

One-cent coin: Richard Sears, for being such a pioneering and innovative retailer.

Ok.  He changed the world. 

Five-cent coin: Steve Jobs, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Well, he did more good than Roosevelt. 

10-cent coin: John Bogle, for inventing the indexed mutual fund.

Ok. 

25-cent coin: Milton Friedman, for teaching not only the general public, but fellow economists, economics.

HELL TO THE YES.  YES, YES, YES!!

50-cent coin: Gail Borden, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Ok. 

$1 coin: Andrew Mellon, a productive financial genius

And the opposite side of the Andrew Mellon coin should show Franklin Roosevelt burning in hell.  Read Amity Shlaes great account of The Roosevelt-induced Depression "The Forgotten Man" for details of how FDR persecuted this great man. 

That's Don Boudreaux's list.  You probably have your own. 

Libertarian Leadership Training Conference - Saturday, March 1 !!

The Libertarian Party of Texas has a Spring Leadership Conference this Saturday ! If you are a candidate, candidate supporter, liberty lover, potential convention delegate or county chair, this is the meeting for you! You can pay at the door. Twenty-five bucks is all it takes for a full day of training, teaching, and hanging out with good, like-minded folks who are fighting for your freedom.

Here's a link....

DFW Airport Marriott South 4151 Centreport Drive Fort Worth, TX 76155Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (CST)

This conference is designed to be INTERACTIVE. Please bring your laptop!
Lunch is included in the very low, $25 registration. Please do your part to spread the word and invite all the Libertarians you know who are ready to join the revoLution here in Texas. NOW is the time!

8am - Registration (Breakfast available at Cafe)

9am - Welcome*Convention Process Overview

10am - Breakout Stations (Attendees choose three and rotate every hour)

*Creating a Facebook Page

*LPT Resources/Navigating the LPTexas.org Website

*District Research for Block Walking and Voting Trends

*Convention Chair Training/ District Convention Planning

*Delivering the Message (Role Play, Q&A, etc.)

1pm - Lunch (US Senate Candidate Forum)

2pm - Delegate Training

3pm - Mock Convention (FUN!)

 

The Progressive Art Of Single-Entry Bookkeeping

Dan Mitchell, at the International Liberty Blog, has written the best summary I've ever read of the failures of Keynesian economics. 

Go here. 

A slice....

To explain how this works, let’s briefly digress and explain Keynesian economics. This is the theory that you can jump-start a weak economy by having government borrow a lot of money and then “inject” this money into the economy. And that’s precisely what Obama did with the stimulus, mostly with more spending, but also with some tax cuts for favored constituencies. According to the theory, the money that is being spent by the government (and the recipients of tax cuts) will goose growth and create a ripple effect as producers hire people to deal with the increase in “aggregate demand.”

The Keynesians basically assume that there are no “opportunity costs” when government borrows money and spends it. That’s a bit of economic jargon, but it’s simply a way of saying that Keynesians think that money, for all intents and purposes, will sit idle and gather dust during an economic downturn in the absence of government.
 

This is a very nice theory…but only on a blackboard.
 

In reality, there is an “opportunity cost” when government borrows money and spends it. Resources are diverted from the productive sector of the economy. This might not be a problem if government spent money wisely, but stimulus schemes tend to reward interest groups with the most political clout. So instead of outlays for physical and human capital, which at least theoretically might improve the economy’s productive capacity, the White House directed the bulk of the stimulus to redistribution programs and handouts to state governments.

Yeah.  What he said.  Everything looks rosy as long as you restrict your analysis to what Kevin Williamson recently called "The Occult Art Of Single-Entry Bookkeeping". 

 

Would you pledge allegiance to The Tzar?

A Facebook friend that I've never met, Mr. David Singhiser, has been throwing down some excellent posts and rants about the military, pledging allegiance, immigration, and loyalty to The State.

(The catalyst for all this has been disagreement in his family about a relative going to work in the U.S. Marines.) 

Check this out.  Pure, undiluted greatness....

For those few family members who are still friends and followers: When Little Grandma's grandparents accepted going to Russia in the early 19th century, they were promised certain rights and privileges such as: keeping their own language (What? They were not compelled to learn Russian?), sending their children to their own schools, going to their own churches, and their young men were free from conscription and fighting in the Tzar's wars.

Let's be clear. They prospered. I have seen pictures of the Milljos and Singeisens. They were well off. They were well off! They owned vineyards and other property.

However, when a later Tzar took back those rights and privileges, Little Grandma and her family and community left for America. I doubt that any of them questioned their commitment to freedom. None accused them of their lack of patriotism, their lack of loyalty to the Tzar and the royal family.

That was a non-issue. It was freedom that was important. It was obvious, freedom was more important, not a Tzar, not a government, not a country that "gave" them prosperity. They earned it, and the Imperial Russian Government decided to confiscate property and send their young men to war.

Wasn't the Russian government within its rights? Shouldn't the Swiss and German colonialists be obligated to pay their dues? But in the eyes of the colonialists, the Tzar broke the promise.

Freedom could be found elsewhere. Liberty was what was important, more than prosperity, more than a false loyalty to a bankrupt and lying government, more than even a place.

Well my dear family, the US government broke it's promises. It took Eddie and Bill (Little Grandma's sons during WWI) and Lawrence during WWII and Bill during the Korean War (her grandsons).

Government officials have lied to us, spied on us, confiscated out wealth and prosperity. We owe them nothing.

Her generation however, understood freedom. Freedom was more important than a government or a nation.

When the government became oppressive, she and her community left. Simple, not easy, but simple; they left, ….for Freedom!

We owe these government officials no loyalty, only our contempt. If we are true to our heritage, we follow liberty, no matter where it is in the world. We are not serfs; we are not slaves. We bow to no one. We do not send our children into war to fight for a government and an elite. We are better than that.

How sad.

Most of you have lost this message, if you ever knew it. How sad you chose to be loyal to a government that lied to you. How sad you chose land - DIRT - over freedom. I am sorry you fell for the propaganda. I am sorry that some of you have even encouraged a family member to march into war.

You are victims of the propaganda as well. I too fell for the propaganda, but I woke up. I continue to wake up.

I wish you would too.

I wish you loved freedom more than a place, more than a state, more than a government.  

Latest sign that The Apocalypse is upon us

From a recent conversation with a college graduate.....

Whited Sepulchre: We give out three awards at our Libertarian Party National cCnvention.  There's The Thomas Jefferson award....,

Twenty-five year old: Cool.

Whited Sepulchre: And we give out an award for best communicator of the Libertarian message called The Thomas Paine award....,

Twenty-five year old: (nods head)

Whited Sepulchre: And for service as an activist, we have The Samuel Adams award.

Twenty-five year old college graduate:  (looking genuinely perplexed) Why did they name that one after a beer?

 

Small businesses can now cut every expense but labor.

Every day, I become more and more convinced that we are being governed by idiots, and that Barack Obama is their king. 

As anyone who has ever run a 5-employee coffee bar knows that businesses have an income and businesses have expenses. 

Expenses are coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor. 

Income is income.  It could be dollars, or it could be javelins, Coca-Colas, gasoline, eggs, butter, ammunition or anything else you would swap for a double-espresso.   It's what people swap for your coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor.

Let's pretend that you have a chain of coffee bars, and you have 100 employees.  If so, you're going to be hit with Obamacare costs.  But if you have 99 employees, you can avoid that expense for another year. 

Any sane human will find a way to avoid that expense.  All sane humans will avoid that expense, if at all possible. 

If the costs of cups goes up, they will try to find a cheaper cup.  Ditto for coffee or cash register tape.

So if expenses go up to the point where costs have to be cut (whether it is in cups, labor or chocolate), how will Obama's Mouth-Breathers protect their reputations? 

They will make it illegal to reduce the number of employees.  I swear to God, they're going to make you swear to them that you didn't cut payroll to avoid paying the Obamacare shakedown tax. 

 Consider what administration officials announcing the new exemption for medium-sized employers had to say about firms that might fire workers to get under the threshold and avoid hugely expensive new requirements of the law. Obama officials made clear in a press briefing that firms would not be allowed to lay off workers to get into the preferred class of those businesses with 50 to 99 employees. How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so.

If you've ever run anything and tried to make a profit by doing so, you know that this is lunacy.  Labor is the same as cups, coffee, or chocolate. 
If you aren't making money, you have to cut where you can.  Anywhere you can. 

Godalmighty, I'm ready for the Rodham Administration to take over. 

I, Valentine

From Wikipedia (because I'm feeling lazy and don't want to condense their words into my own) here is a summary of Leonard Read's immortal Free Market essay "I, Pencil", an essay which proves that no small group or individual can organize the production of something as simple as a pencil, much less control the U.S. healthcare system.  Nobody can make a pencil.  Pencils are too complicated.  But anyone with 15 cents can get a pencil  Go here to download a copy or an MP3. 

"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.

No Master Mind
There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.
... Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.
... The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

—"I, Pencil", 2008 edition

I instantly thought of that when one of my freight carriers sent me this Infographic showing the growth, movement, preservation and storage of the roses that you (better) buy for Valentine's Day. 

Nobody plans it, everybody plans it. 
Nobody did it, everybody did it. 
There is no "Rose Czar". 
The Invisible Hand makes it happen.  No one involved in the process cares that much about your Valentine's Day gift.  They care for themselves, and therefore, they care for you.   
Once again, from "I, Pencil".....

Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

And you'll never run out of roses. 

The New York Times Should Raise Its Price By 50% Between Now And 2016

How do you get people to purchase more of something?  According to the New York Holy Times, you raise the price. 

How do you make yourself more attractive to employers?  Keep raising your requested wage until someone says "I'll hire you". 

How do you increase employment?  According to the New York Holy Times, you put an added burden on people who purchase labor. 

Good God in heaven.....

Go here.  They've come out with another editorial demanding that the minimum wage be increased by some random amount yet to be determined. 

HOW HIGH SHOULD IT BE? There’s no perfect way to set the minimum wage, but the most important benchmarks — purchasing power, wage growth and productivity growth — demonstrate that the current $7.25 an hour is far too low. They also show that the proposed increase to $10.10 by 2016 is too modest.

You're damn right, there's no perfect way.  There is no way. 

I want to be paid as much as possible for my labor.  Employers want to pay as little as possible.  That varies from person to person, industry to industry, and enterprise to enterprise.  And the last humans on earth that I would want to determine that rate?  The New York Holy Times Editorial Board, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Congress.  The "perfect" rate will be determined by political considerations, not economic ones. 

I'm not going to rant about the racist origins of minimum wage legislation.  (Google the Davis-Bacon Acts.) 

I'm not going to rant about the obvious fact that if your skills aren't worth $10.10 per hour, it'll be illegal for you to work. 

I'm just going to ask the New York Times to raise it's price by 50% between now and 2016.  It will help sales.  600 economists have said so. 

One last thing.....

One of the favorite talking points that these guys like to trot out goes like this....   "If wages had kept pace with productivity, workers would be earning 43.07% more per hour."

Here's their chart.

That's probably an accurate chart. 

The other chart, the one they don't show, reveals that the iPhone in the typical minimum wageworker's pocket, would have cost 3.1 MILLION dollars in 1991. 

Is there anyone who thinks that the world would be better if cell phone prices were in line with worker productivity? 

200 years ago, something like 98% of us had to work on farms.  Food was a massive percentage of everyone's budget.  Do you with that your food costs reflect the increase in worker productivity, just out of fairness? 

God, they make me crazy. 

 

From my garage archaeology project - a stash of 8-track tapes

From the Whited Sepulchre Garage Archaeology Project. A vintage 8-track of the Kansas classic "Point Of No Return".

I put away about 75 of these tapes on an upper shelf more than two decades ago, and dug them out last night.  Good times, good times. 

As I explained on Facebook to a 30-year-old-youngling, back when the earth was young, and the lava was still cooling, we didn't have cell phones that stored music.
We didn't have MP3's or Pandora, or even the now-primitive relic that you know as a CD. This was before we even had cassettes.
These were called 8-track tapes. 
It was a long spool of tape that had 4 separate L and R channels. You couldn't speed up or reverse. You could only switch around from track 1 to track 4. 
 As the tapes aged, you could often hear two songs playing at the same time, which you remedied by folding up a piece of paper to tilt the cassette upward in the player. 
 Most of them were eventually "eaten" by the tape player. They were the only recorded music that could be played in an automobile for a long, long, long, long time. 
 Late 1960s through the early 80's.

Here's Kansas doing "Paradox", one of my favorites from this album.  (I was a moderately bad violinist as a kid, and Robbie Steinhardt's rock violin artistry absolutely fascinated me.)  You can safely ignore the first 50 seconds.  It doesn't start crankin' until then. 
 

You'll never meet a really good waitress or bartender who is a Socialist

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party has a website, a Meetup page, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and might even have a long-forgotten MySpace account. 

About a week ago, in a desire to restrict all of the above to general announcements, we started something on FB called Cowtown Libertarians.  That's where we can post pics, memes, weird internet statist junk, and Barack Obama speeches sweetened up with a laugh track.  I hope you'll check it out. 

Here's a little taste.  It beautifully explains why you'll never meet a really good server, waitress, or bartender who is a true Socialist. 

Here's what I'm going to throw on there this afternoon, assuming someone else doesn't beat me to it.

Cowtown Libertarians.  Common sense distilled into interesting little pictures. 

On thanking the military for their service

A Facebook friend of mine named David Singhiser threw down this well-written, thoughtful post yesterday. 
Other than the Christian angle that he takes, I've been having a lot of the same thoughts. 

What and how you speak has consequences. Earlier this week I lost my temper and lost most of my cousins and at least the respect, if I ever had any, from my brother and sister.

I regret the loss. I wish I could regret what I said. I suppose I should regret how I said what I said, but it got their attention, even if it was too late: a cousin was cheered and congratulated upon joining the US Marines last month.

Just as what I said has consequences, so do other things that I see constantly posted: nice, kind, patriotic posts, given with the best of intentions.

But I hate and despise them, because they too have consequences.

"Thank you for your service;" "They're fighting for our freedoms."

Or the blasphemous:

"There are two defining forces which have ever offered to die for you: Jesus Christ, for your soul, the American soldier, for your freedom."

What's wrong with that? What kind of jerk am I that would despise that?

It's a simple thank you, but what else does it say?

Dear soldier, you, who I don't know, and have never met, I assume that everything you have done has been to serve me, my family, and country, my dear hero, I know this, because you wear a uniform.

And what are the consequences? It teaches our children that putting on a uniform and doing nothing else makes one a hero.

We do not know what kind of service the soldier has performed. For all we know he has spent the last years protecting poppy fields in Afghanistan for the drug lords. We do know if he has spent his free time throwing puppies off a cliff for target practice as has been posted on YouTube.

No, we assume they are great heroes, moral and virtuous, because they wear a uniform.

That is one consequence you teach your kids: put on a uniform and you will be a hero.

Repentance, virtue, kindness, love, compassion, courage to go against the grain?

No, that is not encouraged.

Put on a uniform and conform, that is the message you champion.

"Thank You For Your Service" inspires the unthinking into joining the military. They believe it, because they hear and see it repeatedly: "They're fighting for our freedom."

So kids who are not mature enough to buy alcohol, are allowed to join the military thinking that they will be defending freedom, when in fact, they are fighting for what Eisenhower warned against: the military industrial complex, and of course oil.

Every time you thank a soldier for his service, find out just what he or she did, look around and make sure a kid doesn't hear and get the impression that by joining up, he or she becomes a hero.

Realize that though they may think they are protecting freedom, our freedoms are not in danger by tribesmen in Afghanistan or zealots in Iraq, or Libya, or Syria. American soldiers are fighting and dying for someone's greed.

As bad as the Taliban are, can they really keep you from speaking your mind, keep you from going to church, reading or writing a book? Who really threatens your freedom? The threat is not overseas. So why is the military overseas?

There are consequences to what you say. Look beyond the niceties.

Thanking strangers, standing up and applauding at airports, because they wear a uniform only encourages more children to aspire to join, kill, and get killed.

Those whom I know who are still in the military or have been in the military, who have studied the history of this country, love and understand freedom and liberty, hate being thanked.

They feel a range from embarrassment to disgust of the thoughtless idolization of the military. They, more than anyone know the crimes, the stupidity, and the evil that goes on in war and the military. Some are haunted by what they have seen; some are haunted by what they have done.

Thanking them only intensifies their pain.

And what about the threat to the souls of your children? Listening to some of you, I'd think they've joined a church choir. Christ taught us to love our enemies. The military teaches soldiers to dehumanize the enemy, calling them: Krauts, Japs, Gooks, Sand Niggers. It begins in training. It makes it easier to kill, because you see, there once was a time when most soldiers just shot above the heads of the enemy troops. The military had to put a stop to that.

Beautiful

What exactly follows the military? Where do they go for R&R? Monasteries or brothels? You've encouraged children to dive in to a den of vipers, you thank them, idolize them, and damn them because you refuse to think, you repeat the clichés, you follow the mob, believe the propaganda, all the while insisting you're free.

Instead of supporting the troops, keep your loved ones from joining. Don't feed the beast with your children. Have you not read in the Old Testament how the ungodly threw their children into the fire? What are you doing, if not that?

Discourage anyone from joining. Encourage them to be true heroes, fighting for freedom with their minds and their words. Instead of killing and getting killed, teach them to be peace makers.

Brutes and slaves, blind followers, obeying masters, killing and getting killed for glory! heroism! honor!

Free people are better than that.

Christians follow, honor, and obey the Prince of Peace.

I stand my what I said. I am sickened by parents, family members, teachers, counselors, pastors, or friends who encourage young men and women into joining the US military. They failed them. They believed lies, followed the herd, and sent children marching into the fire.

The Worst Thing Ever Written

This is the worst thing ever written. 

Go here. 

It required a horrifying ignorance of history to write this.  Also present are depressing levels of dumbassedness about art, economics, math, psychology, management, cause and effect, music, political science, human motivation, human rights, climate, agriculture, science, culture, and individualism. 

If I have the time, I'm going to Fisk every sentence.  The Communists made the Nazis look like amateurs. 

In the meantime, check out this book. 

The Black Book Of Communism.  If I can get contact for Jesse Myerson, I'm going to mail him a copy.  For the good of the human race. 

 

A Socratic Dialogue on The Minimum Wage

Lawrence W. Reed of the Foundation For Economic Education (God, wouldn't the world be better if Obama had taken some online courses there) has reared back and thrown out a gem of a post about the minimum wage. 

It's in the form of a Socratic Dialogue. 

I try to do this on Facebook all the time, with varying degrees of success, mostly because my FB friends get pissed and declare that I don't care about poor people and then the dialogue ends when I point out that they don't pay people a freakin' dime more than they have to because I've watched how they tip their bartenders and then we all unfriend each other. 

I'm scraping the whole thing here, just in case the FEE website goes bankrupt or something.  This thing mirrors so many conversations and blog entries I've written on this dismal subject, but does it so much better. 

Socrates: So you want to raise the minimum wage. Why?

Congressman: Because as President Obama says, minimum wage workers haven’t had a raise in five years.

Socrates: Can you name one single worker who was making $7.25 five years ago who is still making $7.25 today? And if you can’t, then please tell me what caused their wage to rise if Congress didn’t do it. Come on, can you name just one?

Congressman: I don’t happen to have a name on me, but they must be out there somewhere.

Socrates: Well, we’ve just been through a deep recession because successive administrations from both parties, plus you lawmakers and your friends at the Fed, created a massive bubble and jawboned banks to extend easy credit. The bust forced many businesses to cut back or close. Now we have the weakest recovery in decades as ever-higher taxes, regulations, and Obamacare stifle growth. No wonder people are hurting! Do you take any responsibility for that, or do you just issue decrees that salve your guilty conscience?

Congressman: That’s water over the dam. I’m looking to the future.

Socrates: But how can you see even six months into a murky future when you refuse to look into the much clearer and more recent past? You guys think the world starts when a problem arises, as if you’re incapable of analyzing the problem’s origin. Maybe that’s why you rarely solve a problem; you just set everybody up to repeat it. If you really look to the future, then why didn’t you see this situation coming?

Congressman: Look, in any event, $7.25 just isn’t enough for anybody to live on. Workers must have more to meet their basic needs.

Socrates: An employer doesn’t have anything to pay an employee except what he first gets from paying customers. I wonder, whose "needs" do you consider when you decide to buy or not to buy: the workers’ or your own? Have you ever offered to pay more than the asking price just to help out the guy who made the product? And if customers like you won’t do that, where do you expect the employer to get the money?

Congressman: That’s not a fair question. My intent here is purely to help.

Socrates: Sounds to me like the answer is "no," but let’s move on. Why do you assume your intentions mean more to a worker than those of his employer? It’s the employer who’s taking the risk to offer him a job, not you. You’re only making speeches about it. Don’t you see a little hypocrisy here—you, who are personally offering no one a job, self-righteously criticizing others who are actually creating jobs and paying wages even if they’re not all at a wage you like?

Congressman: Employers are interested only in profits.

Socrates: Are you saying employees are not? Are they more interested in working for companies that lose money, and if so, then why don’t they all line up for government jobs?

Congressman: Well, we lose money here in government every year and there are plenty of people who are happy to work for us.

Socrates: You have a printing press. You also have a legal monopoly on force. When you borrow in the capital markets, you shove yourself to the head of the line at everybody else’s expense. Are you saying these are good things and that we’d be better off if the private sector could do these things too? Try to keep up with me here.

Congressman: I repeat, employers are interested only in profits. People before profits, I say! I even have a bumper sticker on my car that says that.

Socrates: So are you saying that employers would be better people if, instead of seeking profits, they tried to break even or run at a loss? How does that add value to the economy or encourage risk-takers to start a business in the first place?

Congressman: You’re trying to belittle me but I went to a state university. All of my sociology, political science and gender studies professors told us that raising the minimum wage is good.

Socrates: Were any of those tenured, insulated, and government-funded pontificators actual job-creating, payroll tax-paying entrepreneurs themselves, ever?

Congressman: That’s beside the point.

Socrates: (Sigh.) Figures.

Congressman: Look, $10.10 isn’t much. I think you must be mean-spirited and greedy if you don’t want people to be paid at least $10.10.

Socrates: Yeah, like you guys in government check your personal ambitions at the door when you take office. I’d like to know how you arrived at that number. Was it some sophisticated equation, divine revelation or toss of the dice? Why didn’t you choose $20.00, which is not only a nice round number but also a lot more generous?

Congressman: Well, $20.00 would be too high, for sure. Too much of a jump at once.

Socrates: It sounds like you think the cost of labor might indeed affect the demand for it. Good! That’s progress. You’re not as oblivious about market forces as I thought. What I want to know is why you apparently don’t think higher labor costs matter when you raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. Do you think everyone, regardless of skill level or experience, is automatically worth what Congress decrees? Do you believe in magic, too? How about tooth fairies?

Congressman: Now hold on a minute. I’m for the worker here.

Socrates: Then why on earth would you favor a law that says if a worker can’t find a job that pays at least $10.10 per hour, he’s not allowed to work?

Congressman: I’m not saying he can’t work! I’m saying he can’t be paid less than $10.10!

Socrates: I thought we were making progress, but perhaps not. Can you tell me, if your scheme becomes law, what happens to a worker whose labor is worth only, say, $8.10 because of his low skills, lack of education, scant experience, or a low demand for the work itself? Will employers happily employ him anyway and take a $2.00 loss for every hour he’s on the job?

Congressman: Businesses need workers and $2.00 isn’t much, so common sense and decency would suggest that of course they would.

Socrates: So employers who employ people are too greedy to pay $10.10 unless they’re ordered to, but then when Congress acts, they suddenly become generous enough to hire people at a loss. Who was your logic instructor?

Congressman: Can we hurry this up? I’ve got other plans for other people I have to think about.

Socrates: I give up. You congressmen are incorrigible. You’re the only people on whom my teaching method has no discernible impact.

Congressman: You ask too many questions.

At this point, in utter frustration, Socrates drinks the hemlock. The congressman votes to price many of the nation’s most vulnerable employees out of work and gets reelected.
Whoever warned us to beware of Greeks bearing gifts apparently never met a congressman.



 

Carnival Of The Libertarians - Resurrected

I'm the proprietor of the "Carnival Of The Libertarians" franchise. 

I tried to keep it going for a year or so, but got so much non-Libertarian blogspam that I gave up on the project. 

Here's an attempted resurrection of Carnival Of The Libertarians.  If this gets any significant traffic, every few weeks I'll repost what I think are the best liberty-minded blogs, articles, essays and rants. 

*************

Brian Micklethewaite of Samizdata has an excellent idea about how to ensure that our governments have read the constitution. 

Guess who is the nation's largest drug smuggler?  The DEA.  

An investigation conducted in Mexico found the American government allowed that country’s largest drug cartel, Sinaloa, to operate without fear of persecution. That groups is estimated to be responsible for 80 percent of the cocaine coming into the country through Chicago. In exchange, the leaders of Sinaloa provided the DEA information on rival gangs.

 "But in a Libertarian society, who would decide which cartel gets to be the favorite?"

The Verge has a great piece on the irony of one Nobel Peace Prize winner hunting down another Nobel Peace Price nominee. 

If you've ever wondered about the ratio of legitimate constitutional legislation vs. bureaucratic "guidance" that you can be fined or jailed for not following, just go here. 

If you are a Libertarian, you are probably tired of hearing about the greatness of Sweden's healthcare system.  Well, Sweden's healthcare system is now moving toward what the U.S. system just abandoned, while the U.S. is moving towards what Sweden has given up on trying to make work.  Or something.

The main problem is naturally due to the central planning of health care, whether or not it is planned by regional “competing” governments. While access and quality are guaranteed by national law, Swedes usually have to line up for care. As noted above, wait times may be days or weeks for appointments with GPs while several (or many, and increasing) hours for ER care, but the real problem is apparent in specialist care such as surgery where wait times are not uncommonly several months, or even years.

Reason Magazine displays Hillary Clinton's abysmal ignorance on The Drug Trade, The Drug War, and therefore, just about everything else. 

Holy Nullification, Batman !!!  The New Hampshire Legislature is considering a bill that would mandate that juries be instructed that they could vote to acquit if they disagreed with a law. 

What's the difference in a Statist and a Libertarian?  Just 30 days of reading. 

I love me some NFL, and I look forward to the day when I can legally bet on some NFL.  But according to Reason Magazine, no city should ever do anything to attract the NFL. 

Sports stadiums not only appear to be a bad deal for tax payers, but having a franchise could also hurt loyal fans by making it difficult to watch their hometown team play thanks to the expansion of sports broadcasts and the complexities of NFL blackout rules. 

“If you have a team in Los Angeles and it doesn’t sell out, they can blackout the game in Los Angeles which means you often lose games…and as a fan there’s no payback in that,” says Daniel Durbin, Director of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Sports Media and Society. 

Though local boosters like LaBonge may continue to dream of having the NFL in the city, it’s becoming increasingly clear that not having a team may be the best deal for tax payers and fans alike. 

Go here and you'll learn that our government has spent $3,000 per American (i.e. $6,000 per taxpayer) to rebuild Afghanistan.  The article doesn't mention how much we spent to tear it down prior to the rebuilding. 

Here's something else on the NFL Cronyism Trifecta - tax exemptions on earnings, free stadiums, and to put some icing on the cake, the city and state provide them with free security guards. 

My father used to tell me that "even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then".  That bit of wisdom even applies to Paul Krugman, the New York Times Obama apologist.  Go here to see him actually get something right. 

Colbert nails it on U.S. foreign policy. 

A professional drug warrior goes batshit crazy over the mere idea that he might no longer be paid to interfere in the lives of other people. 

Here's Barack Obama's best debate performance.  Ever.  He's debating some dude named Barack Obama. 

Finally (and yes, this is bait for an Instalanche) here's Glenn Reynolds comparing marijuana legalization and the dismal failure of Obamacare. 

That's all, folks !!






 

The difference in Bill Gates and me - not much

Take George Washington's parents and put them in a time machine.  Let them hang out with Bill Gates for a week.  This is what would impress them.....

Do a mental experiment. Imagine resurrecting an ancestor from the year 1700 and showing him a typical day in the life of Bill Gates. The opulence would obviously astonish your ancestor, but a good guess is that the features of Gates’s life that would make the deepest impression are the fact that he and his family never worry about starving to death; that they bathe daily; that they have several changes of clean clothes; that they have clean and healthy teeth; that diseases such as smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis, tetanus, and pertusis present no substantial risks; that Melinda Gates’s chances of dying during childbirth are about one-sixtieth what they would have been in 1700; that each child born to the Gateses is about 40 times more likely than a pre-industrial child to survive infancy; that the Gateses have a household refrigerator and freezer (not to mention microwave ovens, dishwashers, and televisions); that the Gateses’s work week is only five days and that the family takes several weeks of vacation each year; that the Gates children will receive well over a decade of formal schooling; that the Gateses routinely travel through the air to distant lands in a matter of hours; that they effortlessly converse with people miles or oceans away; that they can, whenever and wherever they please, listen to a Mozart string quartet, a Verdi opera, or Frank Sinatra singing of romance.
In short, what would likely most impress a visitor from the past about Bill Gates’s life are precisely those modern advantages that are not unique to Bill Gates – advantages now enjoyed by nearly all Americans.

This kind of life is America's gift to the world.  How we did it, how we grew it, seems obvious to us when we think about it.  Hell there's not that much difference, climate-wise, between the U.S. and Haiti, right? 

And we are now burdened with a political class in Washington that is doing everything possible to screw it up, counting on your jealousy of Bill Gates to give them more and more power and control. 

 

A question about the motives of minimum wage advocates

Let's assume that there is nothing on our planet called "money". 

The only stuff that is tradable is/are goods and services. 

Yes, I'm aware that someone would come up with something like Bitcoin in a society where there was no money.  Yes, I'm aware that in a "barter only" society, for anything to happen, there must be a "double coincidence" where someone at a Coffee Bar wants to purchase some freight services (my current job, and method of making my house payment) in order for me to get a double espresso.  This "double coincidence" is unlikely.  Therefore, we need something very much like money. 

Let's assume that people in this society make stuff, or they work for other people who ensure that stuff is being made....  They trade their labor for stuff.  Skillets or fruitstands or cell phones or chicken wings are traded for backpacks and laptops and Ford F-150's and Big Macs. 

Let's assume that everyone, in this cash-less society, has some kind of skill or value. 

Let's assume that, unlike the totally insane stuff mandated by the Federal Government, the only stuff being made in this imaginary society is stuff that people really do want.  (This rules out almost everything that our government produces, BTW.  Wars, bureaucrats, congress, Cash-For-Clunkers, tens of millions of welfare babies, prisons for Drug War victims, Homeland Security assholes, military invasions of brown people, bailouts, etc., etc., et.,)

Ok, to my point.... some people in this society make fruitstands.  Some make skillets.  Some serve beer.  Some people can only plow.  Some people do computer programming, while a few mow yards.  Others are good managers of the resources of others.  In this imaginary society, everyone is always trying to match his strengths against what society needs, just in order to improve his own selfish self.   

For instance, if we really don't need another person writing Libertarian Blog Entries in this imaginary world, most people are getting out of the Libertarian Blog Entry business, and doing something else....something worthwhile, something profitable.   That's what would happen in a world that is free of government interference and subsidies and price supports, right? 

But let's assume that, in this world, there is an all-powerful government agency that sets the exchange rates for goods and services.  These government munchkins are the ones who decide how low you can go with your goods and services if you ever found yourself in a tight spot, and needed other peoples' stuff really fast.

This government entity has decided that no one should be allowed to exchange one hour of their labor in producing skillets, coffee, shoes, or Libertarian blog entries for less than.....  1/2 of one sheep, 1/4 hour of computer programming, two hours of rocket science.  Let's pretend like no one can swap one pork roast for less than 12 hours of plowing behind a pair of mules. 

Would you ask yourself about the motives about the people who put those rules in place?

Hell yes, you would.  You would ask yourself who in Congress was getting paid under the table. 

I already know who is getting paid under the table.  I can tell by the way they all vote. 

Wake up.  Please, wake up. 

How to create Libertarians - example # 3,982,123,534

If this girl doesn't grow up to be a Libertarian, then liberty is a lost cause. 
If her family doesn't support Gary Johnson for president, then we are doomed. 

Our mission is to let this kid and her family know that they have choices. 

Go here.  Not only do things like this happen every day, think of the millions of creative moments that don't happen every day because of regulatory vermin and parasites. 

To help you recover

To help everyone recover from the horrors of last night's State Of The Union speech, here's a really funny video of a mailman and a cat. 
I apologize for the laugh track. 

 

Drunkblogging the State Of The Union Address

As is my custom, I will be drunkblogging the State Of The Union speech tonight. 

Obama has already signaled that he's going to raise the minimum wage for all Federal projects to $10.50 per hour, thereby guaranteeing that government will never, ever, ever do anything more efficiently than the private sector. 

He's also going to talk about getting training programs going for the long-term unemployed.  I will bet you the shriveled remains of my liver that he's going to propose more money for America's Community Colleges.  (The first president that I can remember making that proposal was Bush the Elder.  I think every president since then has followed suit in at least one SOTU speech.  I don't think anyone in the Oval Office has ever successfully implemented anything successful in our JuCo system.  But as a series of throwaway lines in a speech, it sounds great, right??) 

I'm writing this intro at work.  Gonna stop at the liquor store on the way home and get a pint of Kentucky Deluxe bourbon, just to brace myself for the horrors that this evening will bring.  The drunkblogging will all be on this same post, beginning beneath the picture, and I will update every few minutes. 

God help us all, we're in the hands of a man with delusions of adequacy.  What I wouldn't give to hear a president say "The State Of The Nation Is Good, and it's because I've decided to be the least activist president since Calvin Coolidge". 

Ok, John Boehner has entered the building....   (I'm watching this on CNN, by the way.) 

While we're waiting for Obama to show up and read what's on his Teleprompter, let me throw in a few vital charts about some of tonight's subject matter. 

Here's what the minimum wage has done to black kids, and Obama is going to try to get a few more confirmed kills of black teenagers by asking that Congress raise the minimum wage to a level higher than anyone would dream of paying to a black teenager.....

Yeah, that chart shows all teen unemployment, not just minority.  So shoot me. I couldn't find the other chart.  I'm drunkblogging this, remember? 

The Supreme Court justices just entered the building. 

CNN was talking about Willie Robertson, the star of "Duck Dynasty" being in the room.  Jake Tapper had to interrupt to say that Joe "The Gaffer" Biden showing up.  CNN got back to Willie Robertson ASAP.  LOL.  Lots and lots of Congressmen are going out of their way to have pictures made shaking hands with Willie Robertson.  I don't know if anyone is falling over himself to get a pic made breathing the same air as Biden. 

I really hope that The Teleprompter Jesus has the nerve to talk about Global Warming.  The entire Gulf Coast, from Texas through New Orleans and Mississippi is iced in.  NEW ORLEANS is having traffic problems because of the ice and snow.  NEW ORLEANS.  The icy weather goes all the way into Virginia. 

They just showed former Saturday Night Live comedian and current Senator Al Franken.  And I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. 

They just showed a zoom shot of  Kentucky Senator and Pork King Mitch McConnell.  I just threw up in my mouth a little more. 

Now they're showing closeups of Willie Robertson, star of "Duck Dynasty".  For the benefit of readers in Europe and Asia, this is Willie Robertson....

He's the star of a reality TV show about a family that has made millions by manufacturing duck calls. 
For the benefit of readers in Europe and Asia, this is a duck call.  Hunters use them to lure ducks within shotgun range. 

Willie Robertson has done far more for the country than Barack Obama.  He's created things that people want, and he didn't steal any of the money used to do it. 

John Boehner is calling the session of Congress to order. 

Dr. Jill Biden (she's made a career out of studying what the hell is wrong with Joe) has now entered the room.  Michelle should be next....

I was wrong. The Supreme Court Justices are next.   Ruth Bader-Ginsburg looks like she might not make it to the beginning of the Rodham administration....

Ok, now Michelle has entered the room, to riotous applause.  I wish Sasha and Malia were there.  By all accounts, the Obamas are raising a fine pair of young ladies. 

Here comes the cabinet.  John Kerry is there with his long face.  Chuck Hagel.  Susan Rice.  Soon-to-be-indicted Eric Holder (we can only hope). 

They're talking about who didn't show up from the Supreme Court.... Alito, Scalia and Thomas.  Alito has apparently chosen NOT to be caught on TV mumbling that the Leader Of The Free World is full of bovine excrement...

I haven't mentioned yet that Obama is probably going to spend some time tonight defending Obamacare.  What's goofy is that there now are more people without insurance than there were before the implementation of Obamacare.   And what, exactly, was the point of Obamacare???

They're zooming in on Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, the department that totally screwed up the U.S. medical system. 

John Boehner and Joe Biden are standing at the podium, acting like they are anything other than political whores. 

A brief side note.....  My mother-in-law moved in with me several months ago.  She has some Evan Williams bourbon in one of the kitchen cabinets.  She would never drink it, but uses is for cooking. 
I don't think I bought enough Kentucky Deluxe to get me through the task at hand.  Should I get into it? 

The really long answer is.... YES.  Obama just entered the building, and your elected representatives are falling all over each other to shake hands with him.  God help us all. 

I'll replace the Evan Williams tomorrow.  Desperate times demand desperate measures. 

Ok, I just checked my Statcounter.  This blog post is going out on a couple of Twitter feeds.  Gotta bring my "A Game". 

Obama is bringing up a teacher.  An entrepreneur.  And an autoworker.  He's going to say that because of them, the STATE OF THE NATION IS GOOD. 

No, that didn't happen.  Don't presidents usually begin their speech by stating that "The State Of The Nation Is Good"??

He said that the Autoworker helped "wean us off foreign oil".  Who gives a shit if we're using foreign oil, U.S oil, or oil that's imported from Hogwarts???  Oil is fungible.  (Look it up).  Presidents have been using that foreign oil line since freakin' Nixon.  Fools always applaud it.   

They just cut to a shot of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  I just threw up in my mouth a little more, and some escaped to the front of my shirt. 

He just slammed Ted Cruz's puny little government shutdown of some national parks, and got some huge applause. 

He said that we've had some severe cuts to education.  Horseshit, Horseshit, Horseshit.  We've got the most overfunded education system we coulda dreamed of.  Teachers are retiring with full benefits before they hit 55 years old.  That ain't sustainable. 

Godalmighty, I'm sick of this man's voice. 

He's blaming his problems on Globalization and technological advances.  Corporations are making money.   Inequality has deepened.  Too many Americans are working too hard just to get by. 

He doesn't mention that it's because we're having to spend 1/3 of our money on his government- mandated bullshit. 

Michelle is getting a Standing -O just because he said her name.  She's brought down childhood obesity rates. 

So why in the hell does this dumb bastard subsidize the leading causes of obesity - sugar, wheat, corn, rice, and other carbohydrates? 

He just stood up for "marriage equality" - a position he didn't hold until last year. 

He just mentioned that John Boehner's father was a bartender. 

And that he, his own glorious self, was the son of a single mother. 

He wants to restore that promise of the American Dream.  He's lying.  He's still going to keep screwing things up.  He's going to keep glorifiying bartenders and single moms while vilifying entrepreneurs. 

Now he's yapping about creating tax incentives for companies that keep jobs in the USA.  We have the 2nd highest corporate tax rates in the free world.  He's lying about those tax incentives.  He'll do without that money right about the time he stops smoking. 

He's talking about creating manufacturing jobs.  He's not mentioning that his Labor Relations Board stopped Boeing from opening a new plant in the Carolinas. 

Ok, this is the part of the State Of The Union address that I always hate the most....  he knows that free trade is the way to go, but he wants to subsidize everyone who can't compete with free traders.  Pick a side, Barack, pick a side.  Be a Luddite or a Free Trader.  Pick a side.   

Now, on to the next worst thing....   The glorification of small businesses.  I like me some small businesses.  Presidents always point out that most of our job growth is from small businesses.  They say this as if it were some glorious piece of wisdeom, because it is true.  It's true for the same reason that most of the growth in forests is from trees that aren't grown yet.  Doh !!!

Now he's talking about some paper-thin material...  much like the content of this speech....

Ok, on to the "energy independence" clichés.  Can you imagine the president of, say, Spain, talking about "energy independence"?  Ever heard The Vatican spokesperson deliver a rant about "energy independence"? 
Since when does this fake self-reliance show strength?  We need energy independence like we need microchip independence, or like the people in your household need to manufacture their own soap or shirts or deodorant or dog food.  We are strongest when we can get the best possible deals at the lowest price.  It's called "comparative advantage" and "competitive advantage" and everyone who passed Economics 101 knows this.  (Obama failed this class at Occidental College.  Look it up.)

I knew he would do it!  I KNEW HE WOULD DO IT !!  Everything from Texas to New Orleans to Washington D.C. is snowed in and iced in, and THE STUPID SON OF A BITCH BROUGHT UP GLOBAL WARMING !!!!  HE'S TALKING ABOUT GOING SOLAR.   HE'S TALKING ABOUT WHAT HE'S GOING TO DO TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING !!!  We're in a situation where the warmest part of the USA is snowed in and he's talking about Al Gore's con game.  God loves me so much.  I know it because she let me be alive to hear this crap. 

GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY I LOVE BEING ALIVE SO I CAN HEAR THIS DAMN FOOL STAND AT THE PODIUM AND SPEAK !!!! 

Barack Obama, much like his supporters, has no sense of irony.  The entire Southeast is snowed in, and he just said "Climate Change is a fact".  Does he not own a thermometer?

He's talking about the rescue of our automakers.  That's like rescuing Blockbuster Video.

Ok, on to immigration. I do love me some immigrants.  Maybe something good can happen here....?

Never mind.  They just showed a closeup of Chuck Schumer.  I just threw up in my mouth a bit, and it went projectile.  Threw up all over the den. 

He's going to bring up America's Community Colleges.  He's going to bring up America's Community Colleges....

He just asked Joe Biden to train workers to fit the jobs that need to be filled.  This is the same clown that he asked to ensure that no stimulus money would be mis-spent....

Here it comes.... America's Community Colleges.... Say it, Barack, say it....

Dammit, he's not going to do it.  He's moved on to Unemployment Insurance. 

Unemployment Insurance is much needed because of Obama's policies that punish success. 

(A quick proposal....  Lower the corporate tax rate to zero.  Cut the number of government employees by 1/3rd.  Watch the USA grow like a weed.) 

O God.  He's into education.  Here's my favorite chart.  Spending has tripled, and test results have flatlined.....

Dammit, I think I deserve some credit for getting this dismal crap posted so quickly.  Hit the ads on my website, ok???

He's babbling about high-quality Pre-K funding, despite the fact that government studies have shown that any advantages provided by Operation Headstart disappear by the 2nd freakin' grade.

OMG....  here go the rants about how to guarantee that "no American middle-class kid is priced out of a college education".  Government subsidies of college educations are the #1 reason that college educations are expensive.  Subsidize something, and it's more expensive.  You learn that in Econ 101.  Barack flunked that class at Occidental.   

On to gender equality.  This man is a lying son of a bitch.  Women with the same education as men, and who work as many hours as men, make as much money as men. 

Here's the most damning contradiction in this fool's speech....  He just finished talking about gender inequality in wages, and followed it up by saying that women ought to be able to have a kid, or take care of her kid, without sacrificing her job.  So....who you gonna hire? Who are you gonna pay the most? 

BTW, there's  more gender inequality in Barack's White House than there is in our society in general.  Will throw some links in here later on.  He pays his men a lot more than his women.  Will find it later.

Some pizza guy just gave his employees a raise to $10.00 per hour. 

You know why?  Because they were worth it. 

I'm trying to raise two of my employees to $13 and $14 per hour. 

You know why?  Because they are worth it. 

Now Barack is going to raise ALL Federal employee contractor rates to $10.10 per hour. 

You know why?  Because it will get him votes and applause. 

He's encouraging every employer to give out raises.  You know what?  Next time you're at the grocery store, pay more than you have to.  Pay $20.00 for your newspaper.  Pay $10.00 for a gallon of gasoline.  Do silly shit, just to feel good about yourself. 

New subject....

Tomorrow, Barack is going to create a new way to save for retirement???   A new program called My IRA  ???

Hell, I thought Social Security was supposed to do that.  WTF WTF WTF ????

Christ almighty riding sidesaddle on a Shetland pony.  What is he talking about??  I can't wait to read the spin on that tomorrow. 

 Here's the good part... He's going to defend Obamacare, which just might have created a situation where we have fewer Americans insured than we did before it's implementation. 

Thanks to Obamacare, no American can be turned away by an insurance company for a pre-existing condition.  That's like saying nobody whose house has been burned down can be turned away by a homeowners insurance company.  I know that sounds harsh, but that's the dude's logic. 

Gonna take a break.  Gotta get some Evan Williams. 

Obama just issued a throwdown to Republicans to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. 
If the Republicans need help, they can go here.  I wrote it myself....

Voting Rights Act. 

Citizenship. 

Cliches. 

Gun Violence.  I wonder if Barack is aware that Eric Holder masterminded a program called "Fast And Furious" where we sent a buttload of high caliber weapons into Mexico to see what would happen?  And Federal Agents got killed with them?

Military.  Automatic standing ovation.  We have 6% of the world's population and 45% of the military spending.  Yeah, they're good people, but hell, how much military do you want to pay for? 

He says our longest war (Afghanistan) will soon finally be over.  He's lying.  Our longest war is Richard Nixon's War On Drugs, which he still chooses to fight.  BTW, has anyone noticed any increased in criminality in Colorado or Washington state?  The two states that recently legalized weed? 

Holy crap... the man is acting as if he finally understands that our presence overseas just might create more terrorists.  He's capable of learning!!  He's capable of learning!!!  Helen Keller's teacher probably felt this way when she got Keller to understand the concept of "water". 

"American Diplomacy has rallied more than 50 countries to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands."  Bullshit.  Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary and others have access to nuclear materials.  Anyone thinking that those are good hands, well, they probably need to read a lot more. 

They just showed a closeup of Robert Menendez, the congressman of underage Caribbean prostitute fame.  I just threw up all over my laptop.  You people owe me. 

Something about keeping Iran from getting nukes.  The bourbon is weighing heavy on me, and Barack's voice is weighing heavier.  The cadence he uses, his sentence structure, all of it is so freakin' tiresome....

OMG.... his favorite clutchphrase..... "Let me be clear". 

He's still talking about Iran and nukes.  Do I detect some saber-rattling here?  Are we gonna have boots on the ground sometime soon?  

CNN just zoomed in on Jason Collins, the NBA's first openly gay player.  I'm all for marriage equality, gay rights, and getting government out of marriage.  But why in the hell is Jason Collins in the halls of Congress for this speech?  Obama only finished "evolving" on the gay marriage issue last year.  WTF?  WTF? WTF? 

Something about veterans getting the healthcare that they need, and getting jobs.  How about leaving them in the USA, you bastard?  Let's not cripple and maim so many of them.  Let's stop creating terrorists.  The military-industrial complex is killing more people than the muslims.  End it, end it, end it all. 

The soldier sitting by Michelle is getting a shout-out.  He was injured, but is learning to speak and walk again.  This pitiful little political hack is going to make a political point, comparing himself, and his programs, and his agenda to this wounded soldier.  I can't believe what the f**k I just heard. 

Standing ovation from Congress.  What a cheap, smarmy little bastard we have filling the shoes of Washington, Jefferson, Taft and Coolidge. 

I'm going to spend the rest of the night praying for the damnation of The Republic.  "

Now he's into the "Teachable Moments" of his speech.  He's still comparing his agenda to the recovery of the wounded soldier. 

I'm going to go into my bathroom and finish throwing up. 

"God bless you, and God bless the United States Of America". 

I'm done.  Hope I never have to watch anything that manipulative again.