Contrary to Popular Belief, The United States Still The Top Manufacturer (For Now)

Today, I was watching the popular History Channel show, American Pickers, which chronicles the adventures of two guys in a van traveling around the US buying old junk from people and reselling it to other people they call “collectors.” This seems like an odd way to make a living and I’m not really sure how their business model works, but they seem to enjoy their work and they have a television show so apparently they aren’t doing too badly.

While visiting a guy in Illinois who had, literally, a house full of junk, one of the “pickers” commented through a series of voice-over narrations about how the United States didn’t manufacture things anymore. He was nostalgic about the old washing machines, bicycles, lawnmowers etc. that the United States no longer made and complained that our economy was too “consumer based.”

While it’s true that the United States’ economy is largely consumer based, we’ve been the world’s top manufacturer since World War II. According to the most recent data I can find by doing a Google search, in 2007 the US still held the top spot for manufacturing. Some believe that China has now surpassed us, which may be the case, but even if that’s true the US is still number two. That’s not too bad is it?

Unintended Consequence of Obamacare #3,300

The intended consequences of Obamacare are bad enough. The unintended consequences could be worse. Sometimes, however, the unintended consequences can be funny, as is the case in Mount Dora, Florida where the Orlando Sentinel reports that a doctor has posted a sign on his door that reads:

“If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” 

The doctor insists that he is only trying to make a point and that he has not, and would not turn away anyone based on their political beliefs. However, he does say,  ”if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.” 

The Sentinel interviewed an “expert” on bioethics about the matter but it’s just a bunch of unnecessary blah, blah, blah. They also got a comment from Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Orlando,FL) who had this to say:

“Maybe he thinks the Hippocratic Oath says, ‘Do no good.’ If this is the face of the right-wing in America, it’s the face of cruelty. … Why don’t they change the name of the Republican Party to the Sore Loser Party?”    

LOL! What a clever guy! The ‘sore loser’ party that’s great. It’s too bad that when it comes to Obamacare the sore losers are the American people. Obamacare may have already cost American corporations $14 billion in profit and will cost the American people tons of cash in the form of higher taxes. In short, Less profit=less jobs. Higher taxes=less consumer spending=less growth=less jobs.    

FYI, Rep. Grayson is a top contender for the Liberty Market Douchebag of the year award.  

California To Vote on Resotring Liberty in November With Pot Legalization Initiative

In this year’s November election, California citizens will have the opportunity of a lifetime to restore some of their liberty. An initiative that would allow the sale and possession of marijuana has been added to the November 2nd ballot due to a petition effort by the citizens.  

The prohibition of marijuana has failed. It has created a dangerous black market for a natural plant that can grow just about anywhere. The government has wasted billions of dollars in law enforcement and our jails and prisons are filled with non-violent drug users.

Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman explained how the government prohibition of drugs has created more problems than it has solved. His argument is very compelling.

Judge Andrew Napolitano I think sums up the argument in favor of legalization very nicely:

Isn’t it about time for the government to drop its Victorian façade and let folks do to their bodies in private whatever they wish? If we own our bodies, why cannot we put into our bodies what we wish, so long as that private act does not harm anyone else? No one is seriously suggesting that airline pilots or soldiers or surgeons should be permitted to work under the influence of marijuana any more than they can work under the influence of alcohol. But there is a time and place for recreational drugs. The time has now come for the government to get out of our homes and leave us alone. Governments in America have been spending about $50 billion annually on drug enforcement and recreational drugs use increases each year. When will we learn that prohibition is a disaster?

 

 

Using Big Brother To Stop Immigration

Now that the healthcare bill has been signed into law by President Obama the next big political issue in the horizon is Immigration Reform. Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are already working up a plan to “solve” our immigration problem. They penned an editorial piece in The Washington Post I encourage all of you to read. The bedrock of their plan is biometric ID cards for EVERY U.S. citizen. These ID cards will be required to get a job. In short, the immigration issue, much like the terrorism issue, will be used to take more liberty away from U.S. citizens.

Just in case you’ve forgotten….  

After the attacks on September 11, 2001 the government quickly took advantage of the situation and passed the Patriot Act which, for all intents and purposes, took away our 4th Amendment rights by allowing the government to conduct warrantless wiretaps on any telephone they wanted. The Department of Homeland Security was created which gave us the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) which have turned our country’s airports into locations fascist have wet dreams over. You can’t carry liquid in any container over 3 ounces in size, you have to put you liquids in a clear plastic bag, and you can forget about bringing a bottle of water in from the outside. You have to go through multiple security “checkpoints” where you either have to walk through a naked body scanner or be groped by a TSA agent and while your bags are on the conveyor belts going down the x-ray machine they belong to the TSA. All of these ridiculous measures have done NOTHING to make our airports safer and amount to little more than security theatre.   

 This is America today, let’s talk about America in the coming months….  

 On this season of the hit Fox TV show 24 the fictitious CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) has the ability to use “drones” (unmanned aircraft with cameras on them) for surveillance. They can control these drones from a central location to provide surveillance for any location in New York City. Drones like this do exist and our military has been using them in the Middle East to fight the War on Terror. The drones in Iraq and Afghanistan not only have the ability to spy from the sky, but they also have advanced weapons systems on them capable of blowing up buildings.

So far, these drones haven’t been used in the United States. However, that is about to change.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the government may start using drones in West Texas and along the coast in an effort to beef up border security. Governor Rick Perry requested the use of these drones a few weeks ago and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Bill White is on board as well. This request was made because Perry doesn’t feel the Feds are doing enough to help with border security in regards to illegal immigration and the recent drug violence in border towns. While the drones haven’t started flying yet, it’s only a matter of time before they are spying on Texans. Who’s to say that they won’t have weapons systems on them?   

So today in America, the supposed land of the free, our phones can be tapped (and now tracked) with out our knowledge, naked images of our bodies can be scanned at the airport, drones can spy on us thousands of feet in the air, and we won’t be able to get jobs with out a biometric ID card. All in the name of “security.”

Didn’t Ben Franklin say something about people willing to give up liberty for security?

No More “Unstructured” Recess For You!

Remember when you were in Elementary School and Junior High?  I would be willing to bet that if you asked people what their favorite part of the  school day was during their early years, 9 out of 10 would say recess. I loved recess! It was 45 minutes where I could do what ever I wanted to do on the playground either by myself or with my friends. We would run around in circles, play tag, red rover, foursquare, kickball, run around on the playground equipment, or just lean against the fence. Sometimes we would use our imagination and pretend to be X-Men, Power Rangers, or other superheroes. Sometimes we would fall down and hurt ourselves. Sometimes we would get in verbal or physical fights. The best part about recess was that we were free to do whatever we chose to do, as long as we stayed on the playground. Recess is one of the greatest institutions in our nation, but it’s now under attack by do-gooder liberals who hate freedom. 

According to the New York Times:

At Broadway Elementary School here, there is no more sitting around after lunch. No more goofing off with friends. No more doing nothing.

Instead there is Brandi Parker, a $14-an-hour recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games. There she was the other day, breaking up a renegade game of hopscotch and overruling stragglers’ lame excuses.

“I don’t like to play,” protested Esmeilyn Almendarez, 11.

“Why do I have to go through this every day with you?” replied Ms. Parker, waving her back in line. “There’s no choice.”

What is this world coming to? RENEGADE HOPSCOTCH GAMES! Thank God Brandi Parker is there to blow her whistle at the these renegade hopscotchers. I can almost hear her now: ”Get Back in Line Slave! There’s No Choice!”

Ms. Parker was hired by Playworks, a communist non-profit organization that has its hopes of  indoctrinating  spreading its philosophy to children all over the country. The Playworks Coaches are “not required to have a teaching credential” and most of them only have experience working “within after-school programs, youth leagues and summer camps, or within other youth service agencies in the non-profit sector.” Don’t let that bother you though, they’re all “energetic, fun, and consistent.”

What is the Playworks philosophy? “Our experience is that diminishing opportunities for unsupervised play in our society have left kids with a very thin understanding of how to manage their own play and that it is important to have grown-ups introduce some basic rules to make play work.”

Basically, since there is so little opportunity for kids to have unsupervised play they have become stupid and can’t be trusted with recess freedom so they need a recess coach to tell them what to do to “make play work” because letting them think for themselves leads to hurt feelings, nose-bleeds, and a possible tendency to challenge authority. “Shut up Slave! Get back in line! You need to make play work!”

Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, is someone who has actually done objective research and has no political agenda. She did a study published last year in the journal “Pediatrics” which came to the conclusion that “children still benefit most from recess when they are let alone to daydream, solve problems, use their imagination to invent their own games and be free to do what they choose to do.” According to Dr. Barros, “Structured recess simply transplants the rules of the classroom to the playground. You still have to pay attention. You still have to follow rules. You don’t have that time for your brain to relax.”

But who cares what a Medical Doctor says. The Executive director for Playworks in the Newark area, Adeola Whitney, says “we’re teaching children how to play if they can’t go to the park because it’s drug-infested, or their parents can’t afford to send them to activities.” This is a typical liberal class envy double-bluff technique. When presented with information that completely disproves their philosophy they recite sob stories of how poor people have terrible lives and if you disagree with them then you are a non-compassionate person. “Screw your facts slave!” 

This is the scariest part about the philosophy of Playworks:

Playworks incorporates competitive activities into its programming, but strives to do it in a developmentally appropriate way.  One amazing thing about play is this: kids’ desire to keep the activity going will motivate them to take actions that are actually in the best interest of the larger group.  Most often this manifests as self-handicapping: switching players, adapting the rules, etc. to keep some balance and ensure that everyone is having enough fun to continue playing.  Our belief is that appropriately structured play represents an important opportunity for learning to deal with both winning and losing with grace. (emphasis mine)

They are brainwashing our children to do things that are in the best interest of the group and not in their own self-interest. This is a dangerous philosophy that creates people who are nothing more than sheep who follow orders. This is the goal of these liberal do-gooders, to turn children into mind numb robots who follow orders without question and love Big Brother.

You Call it Art, I Call it a Bunch of Orange and White Road Barriers Piled on Top of Each Other

What is orange and white, weighs over 35,000 pounds, and cost $4,300 of Austin, TX hotel-motel taxpayer money?  

 This:  

  

 Steve Dubov, an Austin-based “sculptor” is the man responsible for this work of “art” nicknamed the “Barton Barriers.” Dubov says that there is “no deep meaning” to this work. An understatement if there ever was one.  

 In all fairness, Mr. Dubov and his team contributed thousands of dollars of their own money to construct the Barton Barriers. However, $4,300 was taken from Austin’s hotel-motel tax. According to Vincent Kitch, the cultural arts program manager for the city of Austin, “it’s not local tax money that’s being spent … it’s the visitors who help pay for this public art.” So if you come and visit Austin a portion of your hotel-motel tax pays for things like the Barton Barriers. Doesn’t that make you want to come and visit?  

When you look closer though, it cost taxpayers more than just $4,300. According to Mr. Dubov, in addition to the $4,300 from the Austin hotel-motel tax, he received grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He did not say how much he received from these groups but since those groups receive most of their money from taxpayers it is inaccurate to say that the Barton Barriers only cost $4,300 of taxpayer money.  

I’m going to be completely honest here, I think every dime in taxpayer money that was given to this project is a total waste. This is not art. Any dude with a truck, some beer, and a couple of buddies could construct something like this. It irritates me to no end that taxpayer money was contributed to this project. If Mr. Dubov had paid for the entire thing himself I’d have no problem with it, but the fact that taxpayer money was used for this project should outrage everyone here in Liberty Market Nation.

I am completely against taxpayer money being used to fund art and I think the National Endowment for the Arts should be abolished. The NEA has given taxpayer money to projects like this and propaganda like this. What’s ironic is that the motto of the NEA is “A Great Country Deserves Great Art.” 

Would you consider the Barton Barriers great art?     

If you’re an artist and your art is good then people will buy it or pay money to see it in a gallery or museum. Artist are not special and don’t deserve any taxpayer to fund their stupid projects. Our country is over $12 trillion in debt. Institutions like the NEA are doing nothing but adding more to the debt and driving us further down the road to bankruptcy. So I guess that as taxpayers we need to ask ourselves, is funding projects like the Barton Barriers worth going bankrupt over?

A Few Thoughts on the Texas School Board Decision

As I’m sure many of you have already heard, the Texas Board of Education voted last Friday to adopt new K-12 social studies textbook standards for history and economics curriculum. The Texas Board is made up of 15 elected members, 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats. According to the New York Times, the board has put a “conservative stamp” on the curriculum. Since Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the country, the Board’s decision will have influence on most other state’s curriculum. The new standards are very conservative and the Board’s decision has, predictably, received much praise from those on the right and has raised the ire of those on the left.

I don’t care to dwell on the changes made by the board, if you’re interested in that a simple Google search will give you all the information you need. I want to focus on the teachable moments that this decision has offered us.

First, elections have consequences. In the last election, held on 11/04/2008, there were 7 state school board seats up for grabs. All but one of the seats were won by incumbents because District 6 had no incumbent. The highest vote count in this election was in District 14 where 579,172 people voted in school board race. These school board elections happened on the same night as the Presidential election when voter turnout is always the highest. Over 8 million people in Texas voted that night for President so I guess most of them either forgot to or didn’t care to vote for their school board member. I bring this up because if everyone who voted for Barack Obama, and lived in a District where there was a school board election, had voted for the Democrat running for school board, that would have had a huge impact on the recent curriculum decision. I would bet that most of the people who are bitching and moaning about this school board decision didn’t even take the time to vote for their school board member. Elections have consequences. 

Second, the amount of textbooks that Texas buys shouldn’t affect any other state in the country, but it does. Why is that? There are only three major (and a few minor) companies that publish textbooks in the United States. Since there are so few players in the textbook market, what we end up with is an oligopoly. Oligopolies are not inherently bad, and sometimes can be good depending on the market. However, in the case of the textbook market, an oligopoly is a bad thing. The textbook publishers have no incentive to provide choices. Since states like California and Texas are the biggest states in terms of population, thus the biggest textbook customers, the textbook publishers only need to please them and the other states are forced to deal with it. Also, the K-12 textbook market is a “broken market” since the end consumers (students) do not select the product, and the people choosing the product (faculty) do not purchase the product. Who purchases the product? The government, i.e. taxpayers. 

Which brings me to teachable moment number three. The root cause of this whole brouhaha is the fact that the government has a monopoly on education in our country. Why should a board of 15 people in any state get to decide what does and doesn’t get taught in school? This is what happens when the government runs things. Whether a board or committee is elected or selected, the decisions they make regarding whatever institution or industry they control becomes set in stone. Once this happens it is difficult to change. In the case of the Texas school board, it will be another TEN YEARS before the social studies curriculum is changed again. Ideally the government is supposed to be held accountable by the people, but elections only happen every so often, and even when they do occur, as I mentioned before, voter turnout is usually not very high. If you were a school board member who gets voted into office over and over again by less than 1% of all eligible voters would you really care what the public at large thought about your decisions? Probably not. 

Since I’m a Conservative Libertarian I don’t really have a problem with most of the curriculum decisions that the Texas School Board made. However, if I were a Liberal Democrat I’d be very upset. A liberal parent shouldn’t be forced to send their child to a school that teaches something they don’t believe, but with our current system there is very little choice. Children are indoctrinated by whomever runs the school system at any given time. No wonder test scores have remained stagnant for over 30 years. The people who run our schools care more about their personal political agendas rather than educating our children to make them the best and brightest in the world.   

Ironically, the very thing that could solve this problem is something that Liberals are completely against: privatizing the school system. If there wasn’t a government monopoly on education schools would be forced to compete with each other, and you could send your child to the school whose views most closely resembled your own. There could be Liberal schools and Conservative schools, although I doubt that it would breakdown that way. The breakdown would more likely be schools that can teach your child to think and succeed in the world and schools that can’t.

Spartan Blogging

For the next six weeks or so I’ll be training to become a FAA aircraft dispatcher so I will not be blogging as much as normal. There are many topics I would love to blog about right now such as National ID card, the supposed fishing ban, Jihad Jane, the health care bill, America going bankrupt etc., but I do not have enough time right now to dedicate the energy required to write about these subjects. I have been writing new posts just about everyday, but now I will probably only be posting every few days. I hope to be posting two to three post a day again once my training is complete.

Until then I’d like to thank anyone who visits this blog regularly. I really appreciate  your support .

Media Weapons of Massa Distraction

The big story out of Washington this week is the resignation of New York Congressman Eric Massa. The details are a quick Google search away if you’re interested. Massa went on Glenn Beck’s show this week to tell his story. It was a boring interview and nothing interesting came out of it. Beck himself said he wasted our time by having the interview and that the story didn’t matter to any of us personally. I agree with Beck in this instance. This story doesn’t matter to any of us at all.

In the realm of political sex scandals, Massa’s scandal is farm league. There were no hookers or blow, no oral sex, no dead bodies- only ‘tickle fights.’ This should have been a one day story in the news at the most but it’s turning into a huge cabal. Today, the House Republicans are spreading rumors that they are going to ask the House Ethics Committee to investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader for their handling of information about misbehavior by Congressman Massa. This is completely unnecessary and it’s obvious they’re doing this to get back at the Democrats for the whole Mark Foley scandal in 2006. Thank you House Republicans for standing up and fighting for the American people, I can’t wait until you guys are in charge again.  

This is a total waste of time. As Glenn Beck said, this story doesn’t affect any of us personally at all. It’s about as important as the Balloon Boy or Tiger Woods story. Unfortunately, stories like these that pass for ‘news’ today.

While everyone is distracted by this stupid story, Pelosi is no doubt behind the scenes, working alongside the White House, arm twisting the fence sitters in their caucus to vote for the unpopular health care bill that will literally affect every single person in the country. Did you know that they want to add a provision to the health care bill that would completely overhaul the nation’s student loan program and require the Education Department to originate all student assistance loans, effectively eliminating a role for banks and other private lenders. For those of you keeping score, Obama has taken over two car companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and potentially the entire health care system and the student loan industry.  Still think Obama isn’t a socialist?    

 Health care isn’t the only thing they’re working on right now either. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are meeting with Obama today to talk about immigration reform. According to the Politico, the Schumer-Graham plan “includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a liberal must-have) while sweetening the pot for moderates by proposing tough new safeguards, including a biometric national ID card for workers.”

A biometric national ID card!?!? Are you f***ing kidding me? ‘Moderates’ are in favor of this? Apparently so. Bill O’Reilly talked about it on his show this week with Lou Dobbs and they were both all for it. The Wall Street Journal said the proposal was only “potentially controversial.” I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Does liberty even matter anymore?

As if a government takeover of health care/student loans and the National ID cards aren’t bad enough, ABC News reported that the Tresasury Department announced yesterday that “the government racked up a record-high monthly budget deficit of $220.9 billion in February.” (Remember, February is the shortest month of the year.)

According to ABC: 

The latest flood of red ink brings the total deficit for the first five months of the current fiscal year to $651 billion, far exceeding the $589 billion shortfall for the same timeframe in the last fiscal year. The government ended the 2009 fiscal year with a record $1.4 trillion shortfall. The Obama administration has forecast a $1.56 trillion deficit for this year.

 That speaks for itself. If you still believe anything that Obama says about ushering in a new era of responsibility, cutting deficits, deficit neturality, or reducing the national debt you’re an idiot. 

 So while everyone in the media is using the Massa scandal to get ratings the government takes away more of our liberty. I guess it’s just a slow news day.

God Bless Texas

One of the things I am most thankful for is that I wake up everyday in the great state of Texas and not California. While both states are very populous, both were once Mexican territories, and both have populations that are about 1/3 Hispanic, the similarities end there.  The Texas economy is doing well despite the recession, while California’s going bankrupt. Our unemployment rate has been lower than the national average for about a decade while California’s unemployment is among the highest in the country. 

Texas is not run by Liberal Democrats and corrupt public service unions. In fact, Texas is one of the most Conservative, non-union friendly states in the country. Texas is also home to the best university in the world, The University of Texas at Austin, while universities in California like USC are totally lame.

We have a great state government in Texas. Our legislature only meets for 90 days every two years and is required by law to balance the budget. This has kept our taxes low and our spending at reasonable levels compared to other states. This low tax, small government structure has encouraged many American’s from other states, especially California, to vote with their feet and move to Texas. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. 

Right now, our Federal government is more similar to California than Texas and is becoming more and more like California everyday under President Obama and the Democrats. This is why most Americans think our country is on the wrong track. Think about how it would be if our Federal government only met for 90 days every two years and were forced by law to maintain balanced budgets. Judging by how things are in Texas, I think things would be a lot better than they are now.