Auto Cars

I just saw an ad on the TV set from the president of General Motors. He said that they have paid their loan from the federal government back, with interest, five years ahead of schedule.

This may or may not be true. Lets, for the sake of the conversation, say they did pay that "loan" back to the gov. While GM is in the process of paying back the billions in tax payer dollars, the same federal government who doled out the loan was laying a 16 MILLION dollar fine against Toyota!

Reward the company that has failed miserably at business, and punish the one who has done pretty damn good.

It makes perfect sense to me! That's how all companies should be treated. I hate business that produce a consistent and reliable product. Punish them!!!

Dead Heat?

Tell me what you think of this recent Rassumsun Poll which shows Ron Paul (41%) trailing by one point to Obama (42%) for the two most popular presidential candidates for 2012.  Watch the humble statesman talk about it in this interview.  Its a good one.

Friendly Skies

The other day, while attempting to board a jet plane in Los Angeles, I made the ghastly error of sending an old plastic seltzer bottle containing some tap water through the X-ray machine. There was around a cup of water in the clear plastic bottle. The instant I fed my pack containing this bottle into the rubber krilled X-ray device, I knew had I made a mistake. When I cleared the metal detector obstacle, I was greeted by a massive goon, hiding behind the badge of the Transportation Security Administration, whose logo is some eagle flying at the speed of sound.  He was looking for trouble.  He asks, "Whose bottle is this?"  and I tell him "Its mine, and I'm sorry, I forgot to pour the water out of it before I entered security.  I ask him if I can just dump the cup of tap water in that trash can over there", and he says no.  I ask him, "How bout I drink it and we forget this ever happened ?"  He's lookin' for trouble, don't forget, and he says, "NO!" He then trows it in a recycle bin while looking at me and smiling.  I attempted to retrieve it seconds later, but was thwarted.

My point is this---Do we need the federal government to be in charge of airline safety?  Have they done a good job?  Remember that underwear bomb guy in December?  When was the last time you saw an elderly woman being frisked?  Have you been harassed and treated like a terrorist?    Well, your paying for it, so I hope your happy with it!

LET THE AIRLINE BE IN CHARGE OF ITS OWN SECURITY! 

Defined Principal

This past weekend at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference Ron Paul proved once again why he is so worth defending.  As a friend wrote to me in an email:
                
                    Paul could have easily gone down there into the lions den and simply said what the tea-partiers wanted to hear..."We need to trim domestic spending blah, blah, blah..."and then convieniently not bring up foriegn policy. But instead, he fearlessly marches in there with his scrappy followers and relentlessly attacks republican hypocracy of pretending to believe in free markets while they still support the largest empire in the history of the planet. A politician taylors his speech/ message to the room he is speaking to. Ron Paul is not a politician; he is an educator. Ron Paul has such a rabid following precisely because he never makes political calculations. He's an anti-politician. He speaks the truth as he sees it and lets the chips fall where they may. That is why we love him. It's also why the bad guys hate, fear, and respect him all at the same time.

This clip from the conference shows him at his finest, staring down the neo-con boos, and telling the truth.

In Response

A reader wrote in response to my post The Most Private of Property:
              
          ...how do you decide where to draw the line about which government laws/services are appropriate and which aren't? It seems from your post that you do think that a police force or penal system of some sort is necessary. So there ARE some things that you want to see in place...  So I am curious: how do you decide what types of laws are necessary and what types are not? This is not a facetious question at all, I am really wondering where you draw the line.

This is fantastic question and I have a couple answers for it.

The more conventional libertarian/constitutionalists would like a limited government to make and enforce laws prohibiting the invasion of personal property by another person.  By this I mean it should be against the law (as it is) to hit someone else in the head with a bat for no reason.  Many people interpret the constitution to say that the federal government's one job is to protect the States from foreign invasion, (and for some antiquated reason, run the post office). I tend to agree with these points of view relative to the world that we live in right now.  It is wrong to invade other peoples(or countries) property or steal from them.

For the ideal, albeit somewhat philosophical system for the enforcement of these basic laws I once again lean on the brain of the great anarcho/capitalist Murray N. Rothbard who proposed that private companies compete for protection services through the voluntary participation of consumers.  I think this would provide the most just and fair enforcement of the "rule of law" within a anarcho/capitalist society.  This likely sounds kind of crazy too you.  You might be saying, "you foolish anarchist! there are no laws to enforce!"  If A chooses to  infringe upon B's human rights, by knocking down his door and hitting him till he is unconscious, B has every right to retaliate in kind.  Rothbard says:

           "For, apart from ruling out as unjustified all activities such as murder, homicide, rape, trespass, robbery, burglary, theft, and fraud, the ethics of private property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax."

I draw the line when private property gets unjustly invaded.  And as I see it the government is playing the role of the aggressor invadeing peoples property through the coercive theft of taxation. 

Russian Bombing

On Monday two young Chechen women detonated bombs they were wearing in a crowded subway station in Moscow.  They were evidently militant separatist's from the state of Chechnya, in the North Caucus's.  Russia's prime minister Putin has vowed that "the terrorists will be destroyed".

In 1999 Vladamir Putin Led a war against these same Chechen separatists in Chechnya in an attempt to overthrow the government which was being ruled by these "rebels".  It would seem that some people from Chechnya are still angry. 

I think this a perfect example of the failures of an aggressive foreign policy. (I know Chechnya is technically in Russia, but they have been fighting for just independence for a long time.)  As I mentioned in one off my post's here, blowback is the unintended consequences of a governments foreign policy, usually borne out in the form of terrorism against the said governments citizens.  And all we hear from the Russian leaders is, "We will hunt them down and kill them!"  Good luck!  Terrorism is extremely difficult to stop when terrorists belief enough in their cause to kill themselves along with innocent people.  You succeed in one thing: the creation of more terrorists.  

Please don't misread what I am saying here!  I am in no way saying that this horrific act against innocent civilians was in anyway justified, I am simply trying to point out the failures of an American style offensive military involvement abroad.  These people are religious nuts jobs and are evil.  But going into Chechnya and killing more innocent people in retaliation is going to do nothing but cause more of these terrorist type attacks.

I wish America's Commander in Chief and his horrible Secretary of State, Hillary Hawk, could learn a lesson from this wretched tragedy in Moscow.