The Chinese Washing Machine Story 2.0

I'm totally buried at work. 
No time to post anything new. 
There's a chance I'll be going back to China soon. 
I'm trying to put together an e-book of these stories. 
Hope you like this one.  It's a re-post from 2007.  This is how it really happened !

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I've been posting old emails from my China trips any time I'm too tired to think but too wired to sleep. This one's from a little more than a year ago, when I made a Quality Control trip to a vendor called "Aifei" in Xiamen.

Wendy is Aifei's #1 sales rep., and translator.

Here goes....

Dear family, friends, co-workers, Moderate Baptists, retail booksellers, and people from the Starbucks on Camp Bowie,

I hope everyone is doing well. I still don’t have Internet access at the new apartment, and haven’t had much free time outside of working at the factory and getting moved into the new place. I’m writing from the Coffee Bar near our new apartment.

Our company apartment is bigger, nicer, and more luxurious than anything that 99% of the Chinese can afford, or have ever seen. I never doubt for a moment that I’ve been blessed, and am very fortunate to have been born where I was born.

All that obligatory gratitude aside, the apartment was designed to look like the Jettson’s. Unfortunately, the utilities were provided by The Flintstones. It’s on the 27th floor of a high-rise that’s still being built by small angry people with lots of hammers.

Let’s start in the kitchen: There is a double sink with cold water only. The left-hand side sink is about the size of a piece of photocopier paper. The right-hand side sink is about the size and depth of a shoebox. Fran will tell you that I can dirty enough dishes, forks, ladles, and colanders to fill both of these sinks just by microwaving one pack of popcorn.

To the left of the sink is the space where the microwave ought to be. But that’s the only space where I can chop up whatever small animals that I’m having for dinner. (The food suppliers, restaurants, and I have a mutual “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy....) So the microwave stays on top of the fridge until needed. There is a dual surface gas cooktop that works great.

Below that is a Thing that’s not quite a Dishwasher. They call if a “sterilizer”. When I asked Wendy why I needed the sterilizer after the dishes had already been hand washed, she said “Bad Water”. I know all about the Bad Water from the medical disaster of my first trip. She also suggested that I leave the dishes in the sterilizer at all times. I asked why. She said “Bad Air”. Considering that they’re always burning huge piles of leftover Asbestos, DDT, Napalm, Agent Orange, etc. all over the countryside, I’m taking her advice. Good Karma.

The refrigerator is small, but will keep beer cold. The only ice trays they sell here are about the size of two playing cards placed end to end. The ice is all dice-sized cubelets. Made from Sparklett’s, because of Bad Water. A minor hassle.

I’ve got two great balconies. One of them overlooks other high-rises, but the other one has a great view of the lake and the bay. That’s where I have my new washer/dryer. (All in one machine.) It has two digital dials, and about 20 buttons. The owner’s manual is only in Chinese, which I’m slowly trying to translate with a Character-Finder dictionary (don’t ask how that works, it’s too tiresome to explain. But I feel like I’m on the Medieval Committee that turned all the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew into the King James Bible.)

For reasons that I don’t understand, this Washing Machine can be programmed to wash one load for up to 20 hours. Yes, 20 hours. I think it has a similar capability for drying times, but I’m afraid to find out. I might incinerate something.

Combine all this with a safety feature that won’t let you open the door when there is ANY water or ANY heat in the machine, and it’s time for ADVENTURES IN LAUNDRY ! ! ! My first load washed for about 3 hours, and dried for about half that many. I don’t have accurate times for the 2nd load on Sunday, because there was a lot of starting and stopping involved - I’d call it 9 hours total. Every time I tried to move from washing to drying, it started a new wash cycle for a random length of time. And of course, the door wouldn’t open. Then, when I did persuade it to go from wash to dry, after about 3 hours of drying, the damn door still wouldn’t open because of the excessive heat.

It was ridiculous. My shirts were held hostage. All the crowbars were back at the factory.

Most businesses here have a little Buddhist mini-shrine/altar somewhere on the premises. They burn incense on the altar in front of the Buddha statue about twice a day. If things are going badly, they will even place sacrificial fruit in front of the statue (apples, oranges, plums, etc. etc etc. Some people try to fake it with plastic fruit, but I bet that doesn’t work as well..)

Anyway, I thought it would make for a funny photo to show Wendy if I took a picture of some fruit in front of my washing machine, as a sort of hostage exchange for my shirts. I put some bananas, oranges, and grapes on the balcony in front of the washer, and went to get my camera. When I went back on the balcony to take the picture, the door was open. The Chinese Washing Machine was apparently satisfied with my offering.

You can’t make this stuff up

My shirts had been washed so many times they were almost transparent. And they will now fit my little daughter perfectly.

The washer/dryer works very hard, and it works for long, long hours. It’s very complicated. And you’re not going to get anything out of it until it’s ready to give it to you. So I’ve named it Aifei….

My driver just showed up to take me to the factory.

There’s more to tell, like the hot water heater that doesn’t hook to either of the sinks or to the shower, but maybe is what keeps the toilet water so nice and toasty. The bed has a Chinese-style mattress - a term I wasn’t familiar with until this trip. “Chinese Style Mattress” translates into English as “If you have a Basketball, you can dribble on it.” But this email is already over-long. This coffee bar has 6 CD’s in the music rotation, and one of them is Christmas music. When “Joy to the World” comes over the speakers, the Chinese workers and customers don’t know the difference, but all the Westerners in the place look up from their laptops and smile at each other. It’s great. I’ve met people from all over the world in this place. I love this country.

Go here if you have time to read the Chinese Dog Story. 

Gary Johnson rips Paul Ryan. In Fort Worth. Covered by Reason magazine.

Reason magazine has a reporter named Garrett Quinn following Gary Johnson's tour of Texas. 

Gary Johnson is unimpressed with Paul Ryan.  Here's Mr. Quinn's conversation with Johnson on the danger of Republicans in Libertarian clothing:

Gary Johnson is not happy that some in the media call Republican vice presidential candidate and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan a libertarian.

“He voted for the Patriot Act, he voted for the National Defense Appropriation Act, he voted to ban online poker, he’s proposing a budget that gets balanced in thirty years. He is anything but a libertarian, anything but,” said Johnson after a packed campaign dinner at Hill’s Café.

Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, noted that Ryan was a strict social conservative that voted to restrict abortion rights and against marriage equality.

“Paul Ryan submitted personhood legislation that is anything but libertarian,” he said. Johnson's eyes widened and his volume increased as he went into detail about Ryan’s support for a national version of Virginia’s controversial transvaginal ultrasound law.

Yeah.  Can you imagine the interest your grandkids will be paying on a budget that's not balanced for another 30 years???

Also, if you hit the link at the top, you'll see that the pic from the interview isn't from Johnson's appearance at Hill's Cafe in Austin, but from Fort Worth's own Joe T. Garcia's restaurant, where the Tarrant County Libertarian Party held a fundraise/rally. 

Which lizard will you vote for ?

Samizdata recently posted this excerpt from Douglas Adams' brilliant novel So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. 

"On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

That's really all you need to know about the herd behavior that the Libertarian Party is trying to change before November 3rd. 

Mitt Romney gave the world RomneyCare.  He hasn't mentioned a single cabinet-level department he'd eliminate.  His Veep has approved more pork than Oscar Mayer.  Hasn't said a peep about slashing military spending or shutting down Foreign Aid Military Bases.  Calling him the small-government solution is laughable.   But at least he doesn't like gay marriage or abortion !!!  If you don't vote for Romney, the wrong lizard will win !!  It will be a victory for the wrong team of lizards !! 

Barack Obama has spent money like an East Lancaster pimp with only one week to live.  All other administrations pale in comparison.  Until recently, he's done nothing to support gay marriage.  He's a f***ing drug warrior.  He's raided medical marijuana dispensaries.  He would have to study for five years to rise to the level of economic idiot.  His predictions for what would happen without a stimulus aren't as bad as what he achieved with a stimulus.  But he doesn't like the Tea Party or Sarah Palin, and he supports National Public Radio !!!  If you don't vote for Obama, the wrong lizard will win !!  It will be a victory for the wrong team of lizards !!

Here's what Obama has done to employment:

Here's a comparison of RomneyCare and ObamaCare, and I don't know or care about the significance of the abortion coverage, which is circled.  The guys that circled it were trying to point out differences between the Democrat lizard and the Republican lizard, and it was a stretch:
Both of these guys are lizards.  They don't want to change the direction of the car, they just want to drive it. 

Gary Johnson wants to shut the thing off.  Pull it over to the side of the road and park it until it's 45% smaller. 

Ignoring the waste and ridiculous spending isn't going to make the problem go away.  Stop voting for lizards.  Vote for Gary Johnson !!

 

Let's roll this chart out again, shall we?

Whited's Law - "A depression is a recession that the government tried to kill." 

See: Roosevelt, Franklin D., Carter, James E., and Obama, Barack H. 

So....What would it take to change your mind?

I've been phenomenally busy at work.
I'll be incredibly busy for the next four weeks.
So I'm thinking about posting nothing but updates to this chart until I have time to write something else. 

Obama predicted terrible, terrible things if we didn't pass his pork-laden stimulus bill.  Horrible things. 

A gang of idiots passed his stimulus bill. 

Ever since then, things have been worse than his predictions of what would happen without the thefts/giveaways. 

Is there anyone out there who can still defend this crap?  Anybody at all???

When thieves are in power, people with money hide their money.  It really is that simple. 

Ungrateful Cubans

Things like this make me sick....This is from the Seattle Times:

MIAMI - They led a life of privilege in a society of chronic scarcity. Children of top Cuban officials from Fidel Castro on down, they attended elite schools and often received coveted visas to study abroad.


They were being groomed to lead Cuba into the 21st century. Yet, with the passage of time and the decline of communism in the world, many of the children of Cuban revolutionaries have stopped believing in their parents and their values. Some never did believe.

The recent spectacular escape to the United States of Castro's own daughter dramatized the crisis of confidence among the children of the Cuban revolutionary "aristocracy." Alina Fernandez Revuelta, Castro's 37-year-old daughter, is only the latest in a growing number of elite defectors, a few of whom are now in Miami.

Fidel Castro has provided his people with programs for jobs, healthcare, and education.  There's hardly a Cuban alive who hasn't benefited from his economic, medical, or academic systems. 

He's given them roads.  He provided infrastructure - telephone lines, plumbing, and electricity.  Every time a Cuban looks at anything on his island, he should proudly step back and say "I didn't build that". 

But there are so-called "reformers" in Cuba who want to destroy the very system that has supported them their entire lives!!! 

Some of them want to overthrow Fidel Castro.  Yeah.  You heard it right.  But whose roads are the idealistic revolutionaries going to march on?  Fidel's.  Whose food will they eat?  Fidel's.  Whose roofs will they sleep under?  The ones provided by Fidel Castro. 

The hypocrisy makes me ill. 

Cubans didn't plow those sugar cane fields, erect those buildings, or pave those roads.  The Cuban government did it. 

If any of those ungrateful little Cubans can read this blog post, it's because Fidel Castro provided a system that taught them how to read. 

But if you don't vote for him, Obama will win.....

The only pledge of allegiance that a free man should ever make

I've been watching some of the HBO series True Blood.
I think the first season was great, the second season was "Meh", and it's gone downhill from there. 

In the "reality" of the series, vampires have come out of hiding, and some of them are trying to live openly among the non-dead.  They also have a somewhat medieval political system, with their own kings and queens of different areas.  Louisiana has a queen and Mississippi has a king, I think. 

Some of the characters have renounced their loyalty to the queen of, say, North Dakota, and pledged their loyalty to the king of Mississippi.  In the reality of the series, its something taken very seriously.  The vampire who revokes his pledge becomes a non-person to his former comrades. 

Watching that series has gotten me thinking about the current silliness with pledges, loyalty oaths, "Under God", and all the rest.  We routinely say pledges to political systems and lines of latitude and longitude, vowing our unending loyalty and dedication, kinda like we check off the "I Agree" box on a new software license. 

Honor the Texas flag;
I pledge allegiance to thee,
Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.  

If you've pledged your allegiance to the Texas flag, does this mean you can never move to North Carolina without renouncing your loyalty to Rick Perry and Texas and the land between the Gulf Of Mexico and the Red River?   

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."  

I've been to about a half-dozen Tea Party and 9-12 meetings that begin with the pledge to the U.S. flag.  A couple of the participants usually get downright misty-eyed while reciting their loyalty oath and vowing their undying devotion to our organization of states.    After the pledge, someone stands up and starts talking about whether Texas should secede.

Lord have mercy, it makes me insane.  People, let's continue to pledge our loyalty to Bush/Obama and all their unholy works, or let's decline to do so.    Here's what one of our founding fathers had to say about loyalty to governments, flags, kings and rulers:  

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.  

It gets better:  

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Well said, Mr. Jefferson.  Well said. 

With that in mind, here's the only vow of loyalty that a non-sheep should ever make to his government. 

"I pledge that if you government clowns keep screwing up, I'm either going to leave this place, or do my best to seriously mess up your lives, with liberty and justice for all." 

It makes me crazy.  Go here for a similar rant with a different angle.    That's all I've got.  Just wanted to point out that we're all very, very strange. 

Control THIS !!!!

Dear Whited,

Defense Distributed, a libertarian student partnership, is announcing a project they're calling the Wiki Weapon. This project's goal is to test and prove a design for a completely printable, one-use ABS plastic .22 handgun, and to take that design from CAD and port it to a .STL file that will then be freely shared across all major file-sharing platforms to the world. DefDist is anticipating a world where 3D printing becomes much more economical and ubiquitous, and the Wiki Weapon will be one step in providing political and personal leverage to the peoples of that world. The value of such a file's existence in the future cannot be overstated.

We ask that you please share the project or its video, located at http://PrintableGun.com and http://Indiegogo.com/wikiwep, with your readers and help spread the word that there are intellectual entrepreneurs dedicated to preserving Liberty in a time of almost unopposed statist planning.

Please find the attached press release for your convenience.

On Greed

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce.

I’ve had this "money speech" from Atlas Shrugged on the bulletin board over my desk for about a year now.  It's great, and I hope you'll hit the link and read all of it. 

There are three ways to get money:

1) Steal it.
2) Win it/Inherit it/Find it.
3) Swap something of value for it.

On the other hand, there are three things you can do with money:

1) Have it stolen from you/Lose it to taxes.
2) Give it away.
3) Swap something of value for it.

When we say that someone is greedy, we usually mean that he hangs on to more of his money or more of his “stuff” than we think a normal person would. He doesn’t give away much of it or swap much of it for other stuff.

But if the greedy man came by his money honestly, through methods #2 or #3, that means he either swapped something of value for the money, or someone else did (probably a parent) who wanted him to have the proceeds.

Webster defines “Greed” as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed”. Whether the following people have that selfish and excessive desire isn’t really known, but they do have far more than is needed. They lead off the Fortune 400 list of richest Americans. Here are the Top Ten:

10. Alice Walton | Worth: $20.9 billion (Wal-Mart)
9. Jim Walton | Worth: $21.1 billion (Wal-Mart)
8. Sheldon Adelson | Worth: $21.5 billion (Casinos)
7. George Soros | Worth: 22 billion (Hedge Funds)
6. Christy Walton | $24.5 billion (Wal-Mart)
4. David Koch | Worth: $25 billion (diversified)
4. Charles Koch | Worth: $25 billion (diversified)
3. Larry Ellison | Worth: $33 billion (Oracle)
2. Warren Buffet | Worth: $39 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)
1. Bill Gates | Worth: $59 billion (Microsoft)

I’m writing this on a computer that uses Microsoft programs, I just finished shipping four truckloads of display equipment to Wal-Mart, the facility I’m working in has leased 30,000 square feet of space to TTI (owned by Warren Buffett), and I read websites partially sponsored by the Koch brothers every week. (The Agitator, Cato, etc.) I have no idea what Larry Ellison does, but I’m sure that this laptop is a better machine as a result. George Soros is the only outlier, in that I can’t quite determine how he’s made my life better, other than donating vast sums of money for drug policy reform in the U.S.

Some of these people give away vast sums of their money. Others don’t.  But they didn't have to give away their money to enrich my life. 

By Webster’s definition, though, all of them still have enough money to be considered “greedy”. They’ve wound up with far, far more than anyone needs.

How did they do this happen? Did they steal it? No. Did they find it? No. Did the government give it to them after taking it from someone else? No.

They, or someone in their family, provided goods and services that were worth more than money. You and I voluntarily gave the Waltons, Bill Gates, and the Koch brothers some vast sums of money in exchange for stuff they provided – garden hoses, underwear, or groceries (in the case of the Waltons) software (in the case of Gates) or oil (in the case of Charles and David Koch).

They Ellisons, Gateses, Waltons and Kochs don’t need or want all of the stuff that their money will now buy. And they don’t want to sell their companies.

Bill Gates wrote computer programs that I’ve purchased. Millions of other people have swapped their money for his computer software.  But dammit, I can’t think of a single thing I could create that Bill Gates would want to buy from me.

I want what he’s got, and I want it badly. Bill Gates doesn’t want anything that I have.

Which one of us is greedy?  And which one of us does the world need more of? 

Best Yard Sign EVER !!!!

Porkulus increases (roughly) equal GDP decreases

From The Wall Street Journal, on the general lack of effectiveness of Porkulus Packages.  If you say that stimuly spending saved us from a meltdown, you're looking at is as a theologian.  It's a matter of faith for you, nothing more.  Logic and evidence don't interfere with your worldview. 

Here's Art Laffer:

Policy makers in Washington and other capitals around the world are debating whether to implement another round of stimulus spending to combat high unemployment and sputtering growth rates. But before they leap, they should take a good hard look at how that worked the first time around.


It worked miserably, as indicated by the table nearby, which shows increases in government spending from 2007 to 2009 and subsequent changes in GDP growth rates. Of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, those with the largest spending spurts from 2007 to 2009 saw the least growth in GDP rates before and after the stimulus.

The four nations—Estonia, Ireland, the Slovak Republic and Finland—with the biggest stimulus programs had the steepest declines in growth. The United States was no different, with greater spending (up 7.3%) followed by far lower growth rates (down 8.4%).

Close..Still, the debate rages between those who espouse stimulus spending as a remedy for our weak economy and those who argue it is the cause of our current malaise. The numbers at stake aren't small. Federal government spending as a share of GDP rose to a high of 27.3% in 2009 from 21.4% in late 2007. This increase is virtually all stimulus spending, including add-ons to the agricultural and housing bills in 2007, the $600 per capita tax rebate in 2008, the TARP and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts, "cash for clunkers," additional mortgage relief subsidies and, of course, President Obama's $860 billion stimulus plan that promised to deliver unemployment rates below 6% by now. Stimulus spending over the past five years totaled more than $4 trillion.

Hit the link at the top to read the whole thing before it disappears behind a pay wall. 
Hit a Statist upside the head with this chart next time he or she says the stimulus wasn't big enough. 

What would it take to change your mind?

Patrick Crozier over at Samizdata asks the great philosophical question "What would it take to change your mind?" 
In the link, Mr. Crozier uses the example of Global Warming.  He believes that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't falsifiable, as there is no weather condition that isn't occasionally used as proof of AGW.  Therefore, it is a religious belief, rather than a rational one.  He begins his post as follows....   

In the Telegraph, Tom Chivers asks: what would it take to change your mind? It's a good question; I'm forever using it in imagined arguments with socialists. It's good because it helps distinguish beliefs that are rational from those that are religious. If you can answer it without being facetious or coming up with an impossible and improbable test then your beliefs are rational. If not, they're religious. It's a question I ask myself from time to time, as in: what would convince me that freedom is wrong?

So what would it take for me to change my mind about freedom and libertarianism?

Here's what would be required for me to change my mind.  See if this works, if it is falsifiable, if it is non-facetious, and if it is rational.

The Heritage Foundation has long published The Index Of Economic Freedom.  They rank every nation by a standard of Limitied Government (low government spending and high fiscal freedom), Rule Of Law (property rights and freedom from corruption), Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom), and Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom). 

No nation is perfect.  But the citizens of Hong Kong enjoy much more freedom than those of North Korea. 
 
Not every nation is starting from the same baseline.  The U.S. has enjoyed about four centuries of basic respect for British Common Law.  That helps.  Other places have a government and a citizenry who thumb their noses at any contracts or agreements, and the entire nation is run on bribery. 

China's airport have concession stands where helpful Sherpas will set up your new business in three days.  Try that in France.  You'll die waiting. 

Here's a link to see the ranking of all nations by their relative levels of freedom.  Write down the places that interest you.   

Now, check this out....

The Legatum Institute puts out a World Prosperity Index.  In addition to their overall prosperity rank, the nations are judged by their education systems, safety and security, health, and social capital. 

The nations of the world don't have an exact correlation between freedom (liberty) and prosperity.  But it's close.  Of the top 10 nations in the Freedom Index, there are 5 who make the top 10 in the Prosperity Index.  Find me a correlation like that on every pro football Sunday afternoon, and I'll be a rich man by December. 

Hong Kong, Singapore and Chile are all in the Top 10 of the Freedom Index, but not the Prosperity Index.  But these were all third world hellholes within my lifetime.  Then the great Milton Friedman visited them.  They're coming off a lower baseline than, say Norway, Denmark and Finland, but does anyone doubt that they're going to be more prosperous places than the Scandinavia within 20 years? 

I believe that the relationship I see between prosperity and freedom is rational, falsifiable, and non-religious (regardless of how many people accuse me of swapping extreme Baptist fanaticism with extreme libertarian fanaticism). 

I'll change my mind about libertarianism when the Heritage Freedom Index and the Legatum Prosperity Index no longer have a positive correlation. 

So....what would it take for you to change your mind about the benefits of Obama's Stimulus Package? 

Howard Roark's Trial Speech, Barack Obama's "You Didn't Build That", and Elizabeth Warren's "Roads" speech

I finished Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead this morning.  Good book. It's the story of an architect named Howard Roark who struggles to turn his vision into reality while being opposed by parasites, second-handers, and public opinion.  He agrees to design a housing project called The Cortland Homes as a favor for a friend, and for the joy of seeing the thing built.  He has one stipulation.  No one can change his design.  
Government parasites change his design, just for the hell of it, and to prove that they did something that day.  

Roark dynamites the housing project.  

Throughout the book, I couldn't help but think of the vast armies of regulators, busybodies, nannies, Family Values Republicans, Patronage Democrats, compassion democrats and their ilk who would be lined up for miles to keep Howard Roark from getting his buildings off the ground. 

Here's the speech from Roark's trial.  I've inserted quotes from a few contemporary politicians just to draw some contrasts.  See the italics. 

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.


“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

There are a lot of wealthy succesful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. - Barack Obama

“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.

“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.

“But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. - Barack Obama

“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.


“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.

“The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

“Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you, But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did." - Elizabeth Warren

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

“The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

“Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." - Elizabeth Warren

“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.


“Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

“Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

“The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

“A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

“Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

“But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.

“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

“The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

“The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.

“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!

“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.

“I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

“Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.

“I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

“I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.

“It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.

“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.

“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

"You didn't build that" - Barack Obama 

John Jay Myers on government regulation

My buddy John Jay Myers posted this gem on Facebook yesterday.  He's running for Senate, and here's where you can go to send him some money. . 

Here's a beautiful John Jay rant on the general uselessness of government regulation:

 

When the SEC wanted someone to give lectures, who did they hire?
Bernie Madoff. The biggest crook they could find.
Nasdaq made him its chairman; the SEC appointed him to industry panels; Congress invited him to testify.

Unfortunately the more power to regulate you give to government, the more they regulate in favor of their cronies, crippling the real competition, this is why the only real answer is to limit what government can do.

 

I'm trying, and failing, to think of any scams that the SEC prevented before they became full-blown disasters.  There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that regulators knew that Madoff was running a house of cards, but no one had the cajones to say anything. 

Is it possible that the best regulation for Wall Street would be 1) requirements that everyone will do what they say they'll do, and 2) hanging a sign at each end of the thoroughfare that says "Let The Buyer Beware"?  In the present system, players generally believe that the government has their back.  They don't. 

For those against "the big banks" the easiest way to bring them down would be to deregulate them. Why? Because who would invest in a bank 2000 miles away if you didn't think the government had your back?

You would look for a safer place to put your money, like a local bank where you knew the people running it. A bank where you could verify that they had private insurance to cover their loans. Private insurers would do a much better job of regulating banks than the government because they have a strong financial incentive to do so.

Knowing the government is not giving these companies a pass you might consider investing your money in your local economy as opposed to investing it in the stock market. Isn't that what most people would really like to see? Money going right back into their community?

If the government was out of banking then you would get a fair interest rate for your money because they would finally need your money. Right now they can borrow from the Fed at 0%, why do they need your money?

Lastly regulation means that somehow we, the American people taking responsibility for the banking industry, that Americans are ALL on the hook. I don't want to be on the hook for what a private business does.

It means they make the profits and we take the losses.

 

Willingness to say things like that is why John Jay would make a great senator. 

 

 

Real Men Of Genius: Calvin Coolidge

The 1920's "roared" partly because Calvin Coolidge was president. 
Calvin didn't get involved with much.  Stayed home a lot. 
Didn't preach for anything but less government involvement. 
Told the lobbyists for the first Farm Bill to shove it. 
Supported Civil Rights for blacks and immigrants. 
He cut taxes and spending to the point that by 1927, only the top two % of earners paid any income tax.  He slashed the national debt by 1/4.  

That's really all he did to create one of the most prosperous times in U.S. history. 

It was called "The Roaring Twenties".

If he'd been president at the beginning of the the stock market crash of '29, I suspect we wouldn't have seen a Great Depression. Calvin would've ignored it.

Whited's Law: A depression is a recession that the government tried to kill. 

Where's Calvin now that we really need him? 

On Price Controls At The Olympics

To charge fair market value for something like the Olympics would be unfair. 
Therefore, price controls were put in place. 

Here's the great Tom Woods, star speaker at the Texas Libertarian Party's recent State Convention, on why you've got empty seats:

The British Olympic organizers restricted ticket purchases, rewarded corporate purchases but not corporate use, imposed price controls on tickets available to the public and state violence against the resulting scalpers (touts) — and are distraught and surprised over the empty seats that characterize so many of the Olympic events so far. To reduce the embarrassment and sense of scandal, organizers have carted in British troops–dressed in their camo!–to fill seats at gymnastics events, while other easily manipulated, low-time-cost groups on the government’s payroll are also being bussed in to other sparsely-attended venues.

Meanwhile, many thousands willing to pay market prices to attend Olympic events are told to bugger off.

And they always act "surprised", don't they? 

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has been having fun for the last 5 years or so, working the word "unexpectedly" into the reports of markets and prices reacting to incentives in ways that surprise the Statists but not many other people.  Go here for a sampling....

A Day In The Life Of A Statist. Or A Departmentist.

Someone (with the aid of schoolteachers, The Department Of Education, and the roadbuilders of the Information Superhighway) has written a clever little socialist parable that is making the rounds on Facebook:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads to my house, which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshall’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how socialism in medicine is bad because the government can’t do anything right. 

-Anonymous Wingnut

It begs for a response, doesn't it?  If the phrase "electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy" doesn't make you break out in fits of giggles, hell, it can't be done.  And then there's the long lists of unnecessary government departments, all staffed with tens of thousands of useless seat warmers, helping this guy get through his day. 

Because if the government didn't provide those services, the private sector could never ever do so.  Is that really what this dude believes?   

Someone called Ipster76 on Reddit wrote a response that goes as follows:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the local public power monopoly. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the latest misleading liberal dominated mass media reports are. I watched this while eating my unhealthy, subsidized corn-byproduct dominated breakfast thanks to the US Department of Agriculture.

Had I written this, I would've put in something about "the US Department of Agriculture - a wholly owned subsidiary of Monsanto."  But I tend to over-write. 

I then get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration used automobile, whose renewed title I was forced to pay an exorbitant amount for when I bought it. I then set out to my job on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, passing by groups of 8 or more Union laborers, of which only about 2 are actually doing work at any given moment due to their collective bargaining agreement. I am also forced to slow down or risk being caught and fined by speed cameras implemented by the local government, despite the fact that I am a fully competent driver with no violations on his record, and the highway repairs have yet to be finished after 5 years. I also do not stop to purchase exorbitantly priced fuel from Big Oil subsidized by the Federal Government using legal tender that has lost value thanks to inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve Bank. At some point in the future when I am married with children, I will drop off my kids off at a private school 20 minutes away, because despite my future residence in a decent neighborhood, I am zone for an unsafe public school fraught with gang activity, and staffed by underpaid teachers.

This guy must live on Fort Worth's East Side. 

After work, I drive by the same unproductive union workers in the alleged construction zones, and am again forced to slow down because of the speed cameras. I do not stop by the liquor store, because although I am legally an adult who can vote and serve in the military, I cannot legally purchase alcohol, thus violating my rights under the Equal Protection Clause of Section I, Amendment IIV of the Constitution; however, because I am over the age of 18, it will also remain on my permanent record if I am caught in possession of it. I continue driving my car back to my apartment, which I discover has been plundered of all its valuables. I contact the local Police Department, who make a cursory investigation and fail to find any evidence, because they are too busy fighting the prohibitionist war on drugs under which gang activity has flourished for the past 30 years. I consider smoking some marijuana on my own private property to relax after a long, hard day at work, but I can’t because it has been made illegal by politicians that receive campaign funds from big pharma and the liquor lobby.

I then get on to the internet, which the Federal Government is trying to stifle through regulation and censorship, and proceed to post on r/politics about how libertarians are selfish and that the government needs to be more involved with healthcare.

Well done, sir.  Well done. 

Why shouldn't Olympic earnings be taxed?

Florida's Marco Rubio is trying to ensure that Olympians aren't taxed for bringing home gold, silver, or bronze medals. 

The Florida Republican introduced a bill today to exempt U.S. Olympic medal winners from paying taxes on their medals. In addition to gold, silver or bronze, medal winners receive cash payments to go with their hardware.

Rubio said the American medal winners get honorariums from the U.S. Olympic Committee of $25,000 (for winning gold), $15,000 (for silver) and $10,000 for bronze, with the Internal Revenue Service ever ready to collect.

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," said Rubio, a Tea Party favorite. "Athletes representing our nation overseas in the Olympics shouldn't have to worry about an extra tax bill waiting for them back home."

Similar measures have also been introduced in the House, by Reps. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.

Under the legislation, the gross income of U.S. Olympians "shall not include the value of any prize or award won by the taxpayer in athletic competition in the Olympic Games." If the bill becomes law, it would apply to prizes received after Dec. 31, 2011.

Ok, so Michael Phelps works his butt off to win $25K, and wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
 
Some other guy who isn't on television works his butt off to write a book, sell a painting, or even puts a lot of money at risk to win $25K at the blackjack tables in Vegas.  He still has to pay taxes on that, because he isn't representing our nation overseas?? 

Can someone please clarify the distinction that Rubio is trying to make? 

In case you're new to this site, I believe that 80% of all tax dollars are mis-spent.  The worst thing that can happen to an Olympian's hard-earned dollar is for Tim Geithner to get his grubby little paws on it.  But I don't think it makes sense to exempt Group A from taxes but not Group B.  Especially when Group B supplies the donations that make Group A's useless but entertaining activity possible. 

You Didn't Lift That

Finally. 

A nation whose citizens express proper gratitude to their leaders.

London, July 30(ANI): North Korean Olympian Om Yun Chol joined an elite list of weightlifters to have lifted three times their weight during the men's 56-kg, group B, clean and jerk weightlifting competition at the London Olympics, and he has credited his world-record feat to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.


Om won the gold medal in the process, and according to him, it was all thanks due to their late 'great leader'.

The 20-year-old Om, who stands just a shade under 5 feet, also set an Olympic record when he cleared 168 kilograms (about 370 pounds) in the clean and jerk in the men's 56-kilogram (about 123 pounds) category.

"How can any man possibly lift 168kg? I believe the great Kim Jong Il looked over me," CBS quoted Om, as saying.

Let us all take a brief timeout from our daily tasks, go to a quiet place, and offer up prayers of gratitude to the Kims, Pol Pots, Bushes, Clintons, Reagans, Obamneys, Pelosis, Reids and Boehners who take our money away from us and then pay other people to do things for us with it.  For without them, we would have more choice in the matter. 

Go here for the entire story about Om. 
Go here for the theologian who first noted Om's proper attitude of reverence to The One who helped him lift 168 kilos.  His blog is called The Dignified Rant.  Via a link from Instapundit. 
If you've been moved by Om's story, you can go here for information on how pay for even more government's spending.  (Bush/Obama spending, not North Korean spending).

Send your checks to this address:

Attn: Dept G

Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

Happy Birthday, Milton Friedman !!!

From The Wall Street Journal:

It's a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It's perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world's greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today's $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.

In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that "there's no such thing as a free lunch." If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical "multiplier effect" by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test. Obamanomics may be the most expensive failed experiment in free-lunch economics in American history.

Equally illogical is the superstition that government can create prosperity by having Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke print more dollars. In the very short term, Friedman proved, excess money fools people with an illusion of prosperity. But the market quickly catches on, and there is no boost in output, just higher prices.

Next to Ronald Reagan, in the second half of the 20th century there was no more influential voice for economic freedom world-wide than Milton Friedman. Small in stature but a giant intellect, he was the economist who saved capitalism by dismembering the ideas of central planning when most of academia was mesmerized by the creed of government as savior.

Some words to remember from the middle of the article, on school choice, and why raising taxes on anybody is a bad idea:

The issue he devoted most of his later years to was school choice for all parents, and his Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice is dedicated to that cause. He used to lament that "we allow the market, consumer choice and competition to work in nearly every industry except for the one that may matter most: education."


As for congressional Republicans who are at risk of getting suckered into a tax-hike budget deal, they may want to remember another Milton Friedman adage: "Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with."

Go here to read the whole thing.  Here are the closing paragraphs: 

In a recent tribute to Friedman in the Journal of Economic Literature, Harvard's Andrei Shleifer describes 1980-2005 as "The Age of Milton Friedman," an era that "witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world embraced free-market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined."

Here's an idiotic stencil from the "Occupy Wall Street Folks" who don't quite understand that increased trade and freedom are good things:

Well over 200 million were liberated from poverty thanks to the rediscovery of the free market. And now as the world teeters close to another recession, leaders need to urgently rediscover Friedman's ideas.

I remember asking Milton, a year or so before his death, during one of our semiannual dinners in downtown San Francisco: What can we do to make America more prosperous? "Three things," he replied instantly. "Promote free trade, school choice for all children, and cut government spending."

How much should we cut? "As much as possible."

One other thing...Friedman was much criticized for advising some of the regime of Pinochet in Chile.  Protesters met him at the airport, etc.  (No one said anything about him advising China's murderous commie regime, since the Communists were thought to have pure intentions.) 

I'm sending shipments to Chile and China in the next few weeks.  Since Friedman's consultations, these nations have gone from 3rd World Shitholes to prosperous places to live.  They can afford to purchase fruitstands made in the USA.  Chile now afford to purchase entire grocery stores worth of USA-manufactured displays. 

North Korea and Cuba are not yet customers.  Come back, Milton!  We need you !!!

Liberty Speaker Series - Guns, The 2nd Amendment, and You

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The Bill Of Rights is a list of ten rules to protect citizens from their government. If the government gets to have a militia, then the people get to have guns.

So why the controversy about gun rights?  If crazies, outlaws, and criminals have guns, shouldn't the populace be allowed to defend itself?  That's the subject for our next Liberty Speakers Series. We're getting together at the Radisson Hotel at 2540 Meacham Boulevard in north Fort Worth, 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 2nd.

(BTW, I scheduled this event before the mass-murder in Colorado.  I'm not intending to exploit the issue.  But folks, it's now possible to make a gun with a 3D printer.  They're not going away.) 

We have a great trio of speakers from two great organizations.

Scott Harmon is a Political Event Volunteer Coordinator with the National Rifle Association. He (and his family!) have worked tirelessly for years to protect the 2nd Amendment, publicize threats to your gun rights, and to educate the public about the pressures that are brought to bear on lawmakers in Washington and Austin. Scott comes to us highly recommended by the NRA's national office. After a few telephone conversations, it's safe to say that this won't be Scott's last speaking event for a Libertarian audience (Hello, Dallas County !) Scott makes some of us sound like Marxist Vegetarians. You don't want to miss hearing Scott Harmon talk about your gun rights, especially in today's political climate.

David Stroud is the First-Vice President of the Texas State Rifle Association, an organization founded in 1919 to protect (and expand) the rights of Texas gun owners. David got into the TSRA to participate in some of their competitive shooting events, liked what he saw, and began working in various administrative and leadership jobs in the organization. David will talk to anyone, anywhere, and any time about gun rights. He once took the TSRA booth to the Texas State Democratic Convention. Now that is commitment !!

Larry Keilberg is head of the National Association For Legal Gun Defense, an organization that provides legal aid for anyone who fights back against a criminal.  (Larry and his management team are a recent addition to this event.)  All members of the NAFLGD have an automatic $10,000.00 defense fund at their disposal should they be involved in a defense-related incident.  Their team of lawyers (Fort Worth based, BTW) is at your disposal. 

After we hear from Scott, David and Larry talk about their organizations, their importance, the latest threats in the state and national legislatures, they'll be taking some questions from you.

This will be an oustanding evening with some great speakers for a great liberty-minded audience. Hope to see you there ! Thursday, August 2nd, 7:30, at the Radisson Hotel at I-35 and Meacham Boulevard.