This Gmail Chat article made my day. Wait to those liberal bloggers over at Huffington Post find out the original tech lead for Gmail Chat is a raging libertarian who supports Ron Paul.
I kid them though. I've seen both positive and negative articles about Ron Paul on Huffington and we both have a common enemy in neoconservatives. I wonder if the people at Daily Kos and TPM use Gmail Chat. I think they get immense pleasure out of attacking Dr. Paul.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
How to give everyone healthcare and get rid of the income tax
There are many reasons why having an income tax and a big government is dangerous. First, the centralization of power is a threat to freedom and this centralization of power can only be acheived when the government has control of a large percentage of the country's wealth. Second, the main beneficiaries of the big government are those most connected to the government: the politicians, the recipients of corporate welfare, and other special interests seeking special privileges. Third, the money spent by the government is generally for the benefit of the government, not for the benefit of the people.
In order to stop this, we must get rid of the income tax, but when this proposal is made, progressive and liberals argue that the people proposing such a measure are selfish and greedy. So I will make a simpler proposal that isn't quite as good as getting rid of the income tax, but it's a lot better than our current income tax.
The proposal is that all the money collected by income taxes should be destroyed. After receiving the money, the government can electronically remove it from the money supply. In this scenario, we would still pay the same amount of income tax, but I believe the country would be a lot better off.
For starters, there would be no war in Iraq because we couldn't possibly afford to start aggressive wars against other countries. Instead of spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined, we'd have to spend in proportion to what a country of our size has and needs. This would wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and result in us bringing most of our 500,000 or so troops back home. We'd have a much smaller military overall.
Our military-industrial complex is responsible for about 5% of our GDP. Let's say that translates into roughly 5% of the workforce. In 2006, there were about 106M full time workers in the USA. So 5% of that would be about 5.3M workers that are part of our military-industrial complex. This sounds about right to me because there are about 1.8M full-time workers in the US Military and the rest can be accounted for by companies that make weapons and support the military. Let's say we cut that by half (I consider that pretty modest). That would mean we could remove 2.6M workers from a military that provides little benefit to Americans. How could these workers (many of them highly skilled) be useful to the economy? Well how about 1M more new healthcare workers in the form of doctors, nurses, technicians, and hospital workers. How about 500K new primary and secondary teachers? How about hundreds of thousands skilled engineers working on medical technology instead of missile and fighter jet technology? It's not just the workers but also all the resources that each of those workers represent in terms of buildings, computer equipment, energy, etc.,
When people ask why don't we have healthcare for all Americans, it's not because we don't have high enough taxes. It's because we take away resources that could be used to provide healthcare and use it for something most of us don't need, i.e. a military empire.
When I look at the healthcare proposals floated by Edwards, Obama, and Clinton, I don't see anything there about addressing the fundamental problem. Let's assume for the moment that we don't have spare capacity in our healthcare system (I don't know of many emergency rooms that don't have lines and doctors offices that don't have enough patients). Assuming then it's not simply a matter of efficiency, there are only two ways to provide healthcare to all Americans. The first way is to provide less healthcare to some Americans in order to provide some healthcare to all Americans. The second way is to increase the amount of healthcare in America. I don't like the former and I don't think any of my wealthy liberal friends are going to like increased waits for doctor appointments and fewer choices. So I think we all really want the latter to happen. For that to happen, we need millions of more healthcare workers and the facilities that go along with them. Simple supply and demand shows that in order to get more of that, the prices will have to go up in order to attract more workers into the healthcare industry. On the other hand, the prices will go down if there are millions of workers that are available to enter this industry. I am not sure where they are going to get all these skilled workers from otherwise.
In summary, the only way to get the healthcare we need is for the government to stop spending our resources on things that don't benefit Americans. I pick on the military-industrial complex because it is the biggest target. There are others as well. If we didn't have the income tax, this would automatically happen. Or if the government just destroyed that money, it wouldn't be available to spend either and it would make all the other existing money more valuable. Either way, we'd end up with a lot more of the things people actually want, like healthcare.
In order to stop this, we must get rid of the income tax, but when this proposal is made, progressive and liberals argue that the people proposing such a measure are selfish and greedy. So I will make a simpler proposal that isn't quite as good as getting rid of the income tax, but it's a lot better than our current income tax.
The proposal is that all the money collected by income taxes should be destroyed. After receiving the money, the government can electronically remove it from the money supply. In this scenario, we would still pay the same amount of income tax, but I believe the country would be a lot better off.
For starters, there would be no war in Iraq because we couldn't possibly afford to start aggressive wars against other countries. Instead of spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined, we'd have to spend in proportion to what a country of our size has and needs. This would wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of spending and result in us bringing most of our 500,000 or so troops back home. We'd have a much smaller military overall.
Our military-industrial complex is responsible for about 5% of our GDP. Let's say that translates into roughly 5% of the workforce. In 2006, there were about 106M full time workers in the USA. So 5% of that would be about 5.3M workers that are part of our military-industrial complex. This sounds about right to me because there are about 1.8M full-time workers in the US Military and the rest can be accounted for by companies that make weapons and support the military. Let's say we cut that by half (I consider that pretty modest). That would mean we could remove 2.6M workers from a military that provides little benefit to Americans. How could these workers (many of them highly skilled) be useful to the economy? Well how about 1M more new healthcare workers in the form of doctors, nurses, technicians, and hospital workers. How about 500K new primary and secondary teachers? How about hundreds of thousands skilled engineers working on medical technology instead of missile and fighter jet technology? It's not just the workers but also all the resources that each of those workers represent in terms of buildings, computer equipment, energy, etc.,
When people ask why don't we have healthcare for all Americans, it's not because we don't have high enough taxes. It's because we take away resources that could be used to provide healthcare and use it for something most of us don't need, i.e. a military empire.
When I look at the healthcare proposals floated by Edwards, Obama, and Clinton, I don't see anything there about addressing the fundamental problem. Let's assume for the moment that we don't have spare capacity in our healthcare system (I don't know of many emergency rooms that don't have lines and doctors offices that don't have enough patients). Assuming then it's not simply a matter of efficiency, there are only two ways to provide healthcare to all Americans. The first way is to provide less healthcare to some Americans in order to provide some healthcare to all Americans. The second way is to increase the amount of healthcare in America. I don't like the former and I don't think any of my wealthy liberal friends are going to like increased waits for doctor appointments and fewer choices. So I think we all really want the latter to happen. For that to happen, we need millions of more healthcare workers and the facilities that go along with them. Simple supply and demand shows that in order to get more of that, the prices will have to go up in order to attract more workers into the healthcare industry. On the other hand, the prices will go down if there are millions of workers that are available to enter this industry. I am not sure where they are going to get all these skilled workers from otherwise.
In summary, the only way to get the healthcare we need is for the government to stop spending our resources on things that don't benefit Americans. I pick on the military-industrial complex because it is the biggest target. There are others as well. If we didn't have the income tax, this would automatically happen. Or if the government just destroyed that money, it wouldn't be available to spend either and it would make all the other existing money more valuable. Either way, we'd end up with a lot more of the things people actually want, like healthcare.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Where Free Speech is Going
The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws
Here is an excerpt from the article and video:
Here is an excerpt from the article and video:
Ezra Levant is a right-wing Canadian neoconservative who publishes Western Standard, a typical warmongering, pro-Likud journal -- a poor man's Weekly Standard for Canadian neocons. In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group's imam to file a complaint (.pdf) against Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, charging Levant with "advocating hatemongering cartoons in the media," and the imam specifically accused Levant of "defaming me and my family because we follow and are related to Prophet Mohammed."
Rather than dismiss the complaint as a blatant attempt to punish free thought and free speech, the Alberta Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate. To do so, they compelled Levant to appear before a government agent and be interrogated about the cartoons he published, his thoughts and intent in publishing them, and the other circumstances surrounding his "behavior." Under the law, the Commission has the power to impose substantial fines and other penalties on Levant.
The hearing was closed to the public -- only his lawyer and wife were allowed to attend -- but Levant insisted on recording the proceedings and was directed by the Commission not to publish the video, but he did so anyway. Here are the noxious fruits of hate speech laws: a citizen being forced to appear before the Government in order to be interrogated by an agent of the State -- a banal, clerical bureaucrat -- about what opinions he expressed and why he expressed them, upon pain of being punished under the law. This is nothing short of stomach-turning:
Monday, January 14, 2008
Director of National Intelligence Wants to Spy on all Internet Traffic
From the WSJ,
We must consider what ability would individuals have to resist a tyrannical government should one arise in the future. The Federal government can spy on our telephone calls and Internet traffic without a warrant simply by issuing a National Security Letter. It can label any of us an "enemy combatant" thereby taking away the right of habeas corpus and trying that person in a military court. It can prevent us from boarding an airplane by adding us to a "no fly" list and it has TSA agents stationed at every airport ready to enforce any future regulation along these lines. It now wants the power to spy on all Internet traffic meaning it will be able to identify any activity it considers suspicious. In a time of crisis as determined by the President, the federal government can now use the military to police civilians and already used Blackwater paramilitary forces to confiscate the guns of lawful gun owners in New Orleans. In addition, the Iraq war has been the perfect training ground for our soldiers to learn how to police a civilian population.
The founding fathers understand the dangers of a tyrannical government and designed many levels of checks and balances into our system of government. In the Constitution, they provided a strict enumeration of the powers of the Federal Government, but we all but ignore what is granted and allow the government to assume powers unimaginable just 100 years ago. They were so worried that people over time might infer powers that weren't granted, they made the first 10 amendments to specifically limit the Federal government's power in the most sensitive areas. So freedom of speech cannot be prohibited, the government cannot search us without a warrant from an independent judiciary and without probable cause, and the government must provide due process and a trial by jury. Through the second amendment, the founding fathers intended that a government couldn't become tyrannical against a well-armed population. Through the ninth amendment, the founding fathers reiterated that if they forgot anything, the government couldn't do that either. And through the tenth amendment, they made sure that the federal government knew that the people and the states reserved all other powers.
We have lost our way and we are steadily allowing all the pieces to be put in place to allow a future tyrannical state. I am not saying that the people in power intend this, but it's just the natural course of things. As Hayek showed in his book, all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny.
This reminds me a quote from the Anti-Federalist Papers:Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”
At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Part of the lawmakers’ ire, they have said, is the paltry information the administration has provided. The cyberspace security initiative was first reported in September by The Baltimore Sun, and some congressional aides say that lawmakers have still learned more from the media than they did from the few Top Secret briefings they have received hours before the administration requested money in November to jump start the program.
This power, exercised without limitation, will introduce itself into every corner of the city, and country -- It will wait upon the ladies at their toilette, and will not leave them in any domestic concerns; it will accompany them to the ball, the play, and the assembly; it will go with them when they visit, and will, on all occasions, sit beside them in their carriages, nor will it defect them even at church; it will enter the house of every gentleman, watch over his cellar, wait upon his cook in the kitchen, follow the servants into the parlor, preside over the table, and note down all he eats and drinks; it will attend him to his bedchamber, and watch him while he sleeps; it will take cognizance of the professional mail in his office, or his study; it will watch the merchant in the counting house, or in his store; it will follow the mechanic to the shop, and in his work, and will haunt him in his family, and his bed; it will be a constant companion of the industrious farmer in all his labor, it will be with him in the house, and in the field, observe the toil of his hands, and the sweat of his brow; it will penetrate into the most obscure cottage; and finally it will light upon the head of every person in the United States. To all those different classes of people, and in all these circumstances, in which it will attend them, the language in which it will address them, will be GIVE! GIVE!In my post Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, I discussed how the government continues to undermine our civil liberties under the pretense that it's for our own safety. Benjamin Franklin said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
We must consider what ability would individuals have to resist a tyrannical government should one arise in the future. The Federal government can spy on our telephone calls and Internet traffic without a warrant simply by issuing a National Security Letter. It can label any of us an "enemy combatant" thereby taking away the right of habeas corpus and trying that person in a military court. It can prevent us from boarding an airplane by adding us to a "no fly" list and it has TSA agents stationed at every airport ready to enforce any future regulation along these lines. It now wants the power to spy on all Internet traffic meaning it will be able to identify any activity it considers suspicious. In a time of crisis as determined by the President, the federal government can now use the military to police civilians and already used Blackwater paramilitary forces to confiscate the guns of lawful gun owners in New Orleans. In addition, the Iraq war has been the perfect training ground for our soldiers to learn how to police a civilian population.
The founding fathers understand the dangers of a tyrannical government and designed many levels of checks and balances into our system of government. In the Constitution, they provided a strict enumeration of the powers of the Federal Government, but we all but ignore what is granted and allow the government to assume powers unimaginable just 100 years ago. They were so worried that people over time might infer powers that weren't granted, they made the first 10 amendments to specifically limit the Federal government's power in the most sensitive areas. So freedom of speech cannot be prohibited, the government cannot search us without a warrant from an independent judiciary and without probable cause, and the government must provide due process and a trial by jury. Through the second amendment, the founding fathers intended that a government couldn't become tyrannical against a well-armed population. Through the ninth amendment, the founding fathers reiterated that if they forgot anything, the government couldn't do that either. And through the tenth amendment, they made sure that the federal government knew that the people and the states reserved all other powers.
We have lost our way and we are steadily allowing all the pieces to be put in place to allow a future tyrannical state. I am not saying that the people in power intend this, but it's just the natural course of things. As Hayek showed in his book, all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny.
Greenspan says maybe we don't need a Federal Reserve
At the end of this interview, he implies we might be better off with a gold standard instead of a central bank. Perhaps he is posturing for what he sees coming over the horizon: the collapse of fiat currency and a return to the gold standard.
"And there are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard" (the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913).
"And there are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard" (the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913).
Bush Speaks the Truth
Ron Paul always says he is running on the foreign policy that George W Bush ran on. Bush seems so reasonable about this back in 2000. Amazing how things change.
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