Reader's Digest article June 2009

Worth a read...about the government's greed and what we can do to turn it around.

Well gone almost a year I see. Well here's some fodder to mull over.........

Have a sick child? Then you’d better get used to putting her on a government waiting list.

That’s because while Barack Obama is trying to sell his proposed federal takeover of the entire health care system with promises of lower costs and more choices, it’s about as honest a pitch as that ad in the back of comic books for x-ray glasses.

The truth is his scheme outlaws private insurance (page 16 of the 1,018 page draft bill,) sends government employees to your home to monitor your parenting (page 838) and forces the sick and elderly to submit to “end of life counseling” (page 425.)

On page 167, and elsewhere throughout the draft, it also calls for compulsory “shared responsibility payments,” clearly defined as a “tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.” The government would confiscate thousands of dollars from your paycheck if they don’t like your choice of coverage. In other words, you have no choice.

And those are just a few of the atrocious provisions of the draft bill. The Congressional Budget Office has found the plan is economically unsustainable. Since “free” care leads to people using the system every time they get the sniffles, it cannot work unless you are put on a miles-long waiting list or get approval from the government to meet your doctor.

That’s commonly called “rationing.”

As more and more information leaks out, Obama’s approval ratings are plummeting. His “strong approval” rating has plunged to a paltry 29 percent. His “strong disapproval” rating has ballooned to 40 percent. A majority of Americans oppose his health care plan.

The above was copied from another email so I checked. Go to http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c111query.html and search for HB 3200. Then, at the bottom, click on CBO COST ESTIMATES. You’ll see that the cost of this health bill will skyrocket the national debt from 2010-2019. Welcome to “free” health care. And by the way, it is indeed a 1,018 page Bill. How many representatives do you think will read it? Now’s your chance…speak up!

CALIFORNIA CONTESTS GAY MARRIAGE
November 18, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California's Attorney General on Monday urged the state Supreme Court to consider whether a gay marriage ban passed by voters this month was legal.

The state's top lawyer, former governor Jerry Brown, said the court should keep the ban in place while it considers the issue -- and it should rule quickly.

California's ban marked a major reversal for same-sex couples, who had won state Supreme Court approval to marry in the trend-setting state in May.

Let's see here...Supreme Court gives "approval" for same sex couples to wed, voters opppose it 52% in an election, now the Attorney General is asking that same Court if the vote was "LEGAL". So much for a government of the people and for the people.

2008 Election

Well here we are again...electing our nation's leader...or should I say, next dim wit.
McCain and Obama are just two sides of the same coin. We have no real choice in electing anyone, as all the media is blind to the fact that there are other people running for this, and other offices. Talking with my boss today, and he's far from being stupid, about last night's debate, I said I didn't watch it because all of the candidates weren't debating. His words..."There are others?"

What's happening here? What will it take for you people to wake up? How many more Patriot Acts, Real ID Acts, and outrageous searches-and-seizures in the name of 'The War on Drugs' will it take before you all realize what's happening? This country is moving towards a collectivist (call it socialism, communism, or fascism)nation, and collectivism is nothing more than an incredibly deceptive scheme that enables powerful people to increase their power, while you become servants.

The Founding Fathers created a constitutional republic, not a democracy, because they realized it was way too easy for a majority in a democracy, to vote away the rights of the individual. A democracy is nothing more than mob rule where 51% of of the people can take away the rights of the other 49%. Stand up for your rights...before you loose them.

Think about this come November 2008

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.
Carroll Quigley – Author of Tragedy & Hope

The truth is that our two-party system offers no real choice. The real goal of the campaign is to distract people from considering the real issues. Influential forces, the media, the government, the privileged corporations and moneyed interests see to it that both party's candidates are acceptable, regardless of the outcome, since they will still be in charge. It's been that way for a long time. George Wallace was not the first to recognize that there's "not a dime's worth of difference" between the two parties. There is, though, a difference between the two major candidates and the candidates on third-party tickets and those running as independents.
Those candidates who represent actual change or disagreement with the status quo are held in check by the two major parties in power, making it very difficult to compete in the pretend democratic process. This is done by making it difficult for third-party candidates to get on the ballots, enter into the debates, raise money, avoid being marginalized, or get fair or actual coverage. The strongest message can be sent by rejecting the two-party system, which in reality is a one-party system with no possible chance for the changes to occur which are necessary to solve our economic and foreign policy problems. This can be accomplished by voting for one of the non-establishment principled candidates—Baldwin, Barr, McKinney, Nader, and possibly others. (listed alphabetically)
For me, though, my advice—for what it's worth—is to vote! Reject the two candidates who demand perpetuation of the status quo and pick one of the alternatives that you have the greatest affinity to, based on the other issues. A huge vote for those running on principle will be a lot more valuable by sending a message that we've had enough and want real change than wasting one's vote on a supposed lesser of two evils.

Why I like Gov. Palin

Palin has been friendly with the state's Libertarian Party.

Palin has shown willingness to engage pro-liberty organizations.

Palin was also one of just three governors in the country to issue a proclamation in support of "Juror's Rights" day, an event sponsored by the Fully Informed Jury Association, which encourages the doctrine of jury nullification.

Palin comes from a state whose constitution has one of the strongest privacy provisions in the country.

Palin opposes the Real ID act, and favors de facto decriminalization of marijuana.

Why isn't she running for President? Maybe a Palin/Paul ticket??

SCOTUS decision on 2nd Amendment

5-4 in FAVOR of the right of an individual to “keep and bear arms” for self defense. 5-4…How come it wasn’t 9-0?

Justice Scalia (Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito joining): Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to
pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Justice Breyer (Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg joining): In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas. (Excuse me…but Breyer doesn’t believe you have a RIGHT to protect yourself? What an idiot.)

Justice Stevens (Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer joining): Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution. (The Framers of the Constitution didn’t believe in the age old right of self defense? Another idiot!!)

Are you a "fence chewer"?

Interesting article we all should read...

http://proliberty.com/observer/20030711.htm

ABOLISH the Fedral Reserve?


Why Not Abolish the Fed?

by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 4, 2008

One of the positions of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul that mainstream pundits find “wacky” is his call to abolish the Federal Reserve System. Never mind that two Nobel Prize-winning economists — both libertarians — called for the same thing. And never mind that the Fed is the entity directly responsible for the debasement of the dollar over the many decades since the Fed was established.
Both Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek called for the abolition of the Fed during their careers. While Friedman spent much of his life advocating externally imposed constraints on the Fed’s power to expand the money supply, his first wish was to have the Fed abolished, as he pointed out in a 1995 Reason magazine interview. In his book Denationalisation of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practise of Concurrent Currencies, Hayek advocated a free-market monetary system of competing currencies.
Most Americans probably still believe that the Great Depression was caused by “the failure of the free-enterprise system.” It is a false belief. The truth is that the worst economic disaster in American history was caused by the Federal Reserve. Give current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke credit for publicly acknowledging that fact in a speech delivered in 2002 commemorating Friedman’s 90th birthday.
Throughout the ages, the favorite political trick for public officials has been to dole out “free benefits” to the citizenry and engage in expensive foreign military adventures without raising taxes. To accomplish this feat, they have simply resorted to the printing press to get the money to pay for the “free benefits” and the military adventures. As more money was printed, its value would drop, which would be reflected in rising prices for the things that money buys. As prices rose, people would blame speculators, capitalists, price-gougers, and profiteers, never suspecting that their public officials were behind the scam.
That’s what the Fed has been doing for decades — accommodating ever-increasing government expenditures by printing the money to pay for them. That’s why the value of the dollar has been plummeting ever since the 1930s. It’s also why U.S. coins are now made of cheap alloys rather than of gold and silver. As the value of precious metals rose in response to an ever-depreciating currency, the value of the precious metals in coins became greater than the face value of the coins, encouraging people to hoard the coins or even melt them down for the metal. That’s what Gresham’s Law in economics is all about — that bad money (i.e., depreciating money) inevitably drives good money out of circulation.
For decades, U.S. officials made it a felony offense for Americans to own gold. Why did they do that? To prevent Americans from protecting themselves from a constantly depreciating currency. Equally important, the price of gold has always been an easy way to gauge what politicians are doing to the money. They have never liked that.
What the Fed has done to our money over the decades should not surprise anyone. After all, the Federal Reserve is nothing more than a central-planning agency in the classic socialist mold. Just like the central-planning boards in the Soviet Union and communist China, the Fed is composed of a central board of bureaucratic appointees planning, in a top-down fashion, complex monetary matters affecting millions of economic participants under constantly changing conditions. Given the inherent defects of socialist central planning, why would anyone expect anything but bad and perverse results from monetary central planning?
As Friedman and Hayek and other free-market economists (most notably Ludwig von Mises) pointed out, the Federal Reserve is the prime destroyer of currency and, therefore, one of the greatest threats to the freedom and well-being of a citizenry. As the monetary crisis facing our country continues to worsen, it’s important that we keep in mind that there is only one long-term solution — the one advocated by people such as Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek: Abolish the Fed.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

CONSIDER THIS IN 2008 ELECTIONS

Press Releases
Study: Presidential Frontrunners Would Boost Federal Budget by Range of $7 Billion to $287 Billion Annually


by
Demian Brady, Natasha Altamirano, Peter J. Sepp

Jan 29, 2008


(Alexandria, VA) -- Presidential contenders have been busy portraying their political differences from others inside and outside of their parties, but when it comes to fiscal policy, ideological labels don't necessarily apply. That's just one finding of a comprehensive study from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), which provides cost estimates -- based on hard data -- for more than 450 of the major candidates’ proposals that would affect the federal budget.

"Our analyses hopefully will help taxpayers distinguish political posturing from concrete proposals -- many of which would significantly change the size and make-up of the federal budget," NTUF Senior Policy Analyst Demian Brady said. "As the public-policy debate on the campaign trail nears its 'Super Tuesday' peak next week, we're providing Americans with the chance to systematically examine how future budget plans may affect their own future finances."

NTUF assumed the most conservative cost estimates of federal outlays based on a variety of sources, including the candidates' own projections; summaries from the Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, and the White House Office of Management and Budget; and results from equivalent legislation from NTUF's BillTally cost accounting system. Among the general findings of the eight reports, analyzing six Republicans and two Democrats:

The eight candidates proposed a combined total of 189 items that would increase federal spending, 24 items that would decrease it, and 238 items whose budgetary impacts are unknown -- in addition to dozens of sub-items further detailing program components. The four respective frontrunners in the two parties (John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama), proposed overall fiscal policy agendas whose net effect would raise annual federal outlays between $6.9 billion and $287.0 billion.
The top-tier GOP candidates often portrayed as "conservative" (Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee) actually called for significantly larger spending hikes ($19.5 billion and $54.2 billion, respectively), than the so-called "moderate conservative" (John McCain, $6.9 billion).
Among Democrats, Barack Obama, often described as ideologically more "moderate" than Hillary Clinton, actually has the larger agenda of the two ($287.0 billion vs. $218.2 billion).
Defense-related spending items received the highest proposed spending increases among Republican candidates. Huckabee and Romney, for example, offered $67.2 billion and $40.6 billion, respectively. Among Democrats, Clinton's biggest boost goes toward health care ($113.6 billion) and Obama's for economy, transportation, and infrastructure ($105.0 billion).
Two of the eight candidates proposed sufficient spending cuts that more than offset their new spending plans: Rudy Giuliani (-$1.4 billion) and Ron Paul (-$150.1 billion).NTUF is the nonpartisan research arm of the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union, a citizen group founded in 1969. Note: Due to time constraints, NTUF staff were unable to complete a report for Democratic candidate John Edwards. For the full reports, graphs of the data, and audio analysis from NTUF staff, visit www.ntu.org.

RON PAUL is your man