They Gulp Our Blood and Our Sweat and Spit Back Lies.

I really like the band Trial. Along with a certain talk radio host, an individual who probably never knew I was listening to what he said, and self evaluation, they are partly responsible for my political awakening. The title of this article is inspired by a line from their song "Are these our lives?" It's a question we should all be asking. 


In the wake of all that happened in last two weeks with a Super congress, the debt ceiling, downgrade in the credit rating, the burst of the recovery bubble, and the results and reporting of the Ames Straw Poll, there has been a lot of rhetoric from our two wonderful establishment parties. We saw the theatrical show that went on for 3 months, with no intermission, about the debt ceiling. We were told about responsible spending, defaulting,  and credit scores. We were told that increasing the debt ceiling would avert the ‘potential’ coming crisis and we saw blame slung from one side to another. Then, just in the nick of time for congress’s vacation, the new debt ceiling passed and as an added bonus we got Super Congress. Super Congress, well how could that possibly be bad, it has the word super in it. Except, the very next day congress proceeded to allocate new spending for 60% of the new debt limit, and we find out that they plan to shove all sorts of legislation through our shiny new Super Congress that couldn’t pass our regular old boring Congress. It is as if the members of Congress were saying to us “Hey, American people, Go f*ck yourselves.” The fact is there are a lot of economic lessons to come out of the actions taken last week, and even more to learn from their failures to come, but what I think is more important to point out is that we were bamboozled, again, by the fallacy of representation we have in Washington.

The two-part system is failing us, It has been for a very long time. Moreover, we were warned that it would.

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” - John Adams

“(In reference to the nature of a political party) It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”- George Washington

This problem goes even further than any single issue or group of issues. It stems from the misinformation that is spread about our type of government and the perception of a political spectrum that doesn’t exist.  There is a great quote of Ben Franklin exiting the Constitutional Convention, and when asked what type of government the American people were going to participate in, he  warned "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."  The short of it is, we have not. Most Americans today believe we have a democracy, which we do not, and for good reason. Also they are led to believe the political spectrum looks something like this:

For starters, the problem with this is that there is no X-axis to their “spectrum”  other than their perception of each other’s ideals. More important is that most of the things presented as government in their scenario aren’t forms of government. Not until you hit the upper side of the Y- axis are you talking about factual types of government and everything in between are words and concepts they have defined, and of course we are talking about our “democracy” here.

The real political spectrum is based on real forms of government. Governments throughout history have called themselves many different things, but there are only five separate forms of government: Anarchies, Republics, Democracies, Oligarchies, and Monarchies. The real political spectrum looks like this:

The first thing you will notice is that we now have an X-axis based on the scope of power the government has. You’ll also notice that there is a significant jump in the size of government from some forms to the others. These differences were determined by considering the number of people who are in power, the limitation to said power and any systems of checks and balances. I should note that the republic graphed is our constitutionally outlined republic, to be exact.

Anarchy is the form of government where there is no official government, conceptualy allowing  for complete and total freedom of the people. The people govern themselves, and  they can do whatever they want. This is not a stable nor a constant form of government and as disagreements arise so do leaders, which almost always leads to an oligarchy or monarchy.

A republic is the form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control over the government. The government is restricted by the Rule of Law which is usually in the form of a constitution. A properly developed republic allows for the maximum amount of individual liberty by implementing laws that protect the people from externalities. It should also set up a system of checks and balances in order to separate itself from an oligarchy or monarchy. This is where many who claim the term “republic” fail in actually forming one, i.e.:The People’s Republic of China. A republic is a consistent form of government as long the people do not allow laws to be broken by the government. In America we have effectively lost our republic, in practice. All the laws are still there, however, we do not hold our government to them. Our government has chosen to operate like a representative democracy2, as well as being a part of a global Oligarchy. These actions are illegal.

Thomas Jefferson1 is often quoted as saying “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.” Democracy is a form of government where things are decided with a majority vote, also known as mob rule. There is no limitation to what the government can do other than having to persuade a majority of people it is right. The wishes and Ideals of 51% out weigh those of the other 49%. Democracy is particularly dangerous when it comes to suppressing the rights of the minority of the population. It also makes it impossible for a fair judicial system, which perhaps, is  why our leaders here in America are so fond of it. Democracies, like Anarchies, are not stable forms of government, as all it takes is a  simple majority vote to take away the rights of certain citizens, or even implement another form of government altogether. If a dictator can convince 51% of the population that what they need is a dictatorship, goodbye democracy.

An oligarchy is the form of government where a group of people share equal power and they are not restricted by a founding doctrine or the rule of law. The UN is a global oligarchy, it has no rule of law limiting its powers, simply an amendable charter that lists all the things they can do. This is also where you would find socialism and crony capitalism, which is actually called a plutocracy. I don’t see the need to go into great depth on the potential for infringements on people’s liberty  when government clearly defines a ruling class and gives them unlimited power.

Leaving us with monarchies, which are very similar to oligarchies only with the group replaced by a single person. This is where you find communism and fascism. Notice that those in D.C. would have you argue they are opposite ends of the spectrum. Yet, they are the same forms of government, the only difference being the type of person who is in control. Hitler was a fascist who supposedly hated communism but preached socialism, but Hitler wasn’t exactly known for sound logic. And this is exactly why this is the most flawed forms of government: It takes only one lunatic to completely destroy your country.

After assessing the five forms of government, we can see that only three of them are stable enough to be more than transitional governments. I ask you which one is the most appealing: the one that considers those in government voluntary civil servants who work for the people based on the limited powers granted to them by the rule of law? Or, one of the forms of government that creates a ruling class, a group  of people or a single person who is above the people without limit to his power? We are now told to pick a team’s jersey and root for them to win. Elections are run like the Super Bowl, lots of talk leading up to it, tons of commercials, and then no one is supposed to look back at the results when it’s all over. Your team either won or lost, see you next cycle. Problem is, if the Steeler's win the super bowl, they go to Disney World and ride rides. They don’t go to Washington and make laws that affect out lives. Should you decide to  “follow” politics, instead of truthful evaluation based on facts, we are given platitudes and talking points by hired commentators driven by a desire to be a part of the ruling elite.  They use buzz words and catch phrases and they repeat them over and over. You aren’t intended to apply your own logic to it, or even attempt to take the argument outside of its pre-determined box. This propaganda technique is called The Big Lie which is when you lie so regularly and uniformly that it becomes impossible to decipher the truth, and guess who developed it? Hitler.

Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels was Adolf Hitler's Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany. He also served as Chancellor for one day, after Hitler’s Death. He is quoted as saying:“The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths”

Frank Zappa described government and The Big Lie
“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed....”

Look back at any political debate we have had in the last ten years and tell me this doesn’t apply. If you don’t think it does, you’re falling for it.

-D

1) I can not validate that this quote was ever said by Thomas Jefferson, however, it is very often credited to him. Some say it sounds more like Ben Franklin. Either way, its point is valid.

2) “Isn’t a representative democracy a good thing?” The answer to this relies greatly on what you are comparing it to, but ultimately the answer is no. A representative democracy is probably the best form of democracy you can have, but it’s still a democracy and they are not stable forms of government. There is no necessity that individual liberties be respected in a representative democracy. The term liberal representative democracy is used to describe a representative democracy that respects individual liberty. The term is often used to describe the United State's constitutional republic. I believe this is an attempt to increase confusion on the matter.

Capitalism a Love Story, or More Like a Fiction Novel.

It's interesting how effective those opposed to free markets have been at portraying fascism, crony capitalism, or corporatism as a free market. It's equally interesting how many people, specifically politicians, who say they believe in free markets, but  actually believe in fascism, crony capitalism, or corporatism.

Free markets or low taxes or across-the-board deregulation did not get us into our current mess. Special tax breaks, selective deregulation, and devaluation of our currency in order to steer markets did. Those concepts have nothing to do with free markets or the Austrian school of economics.

It was central planning that brought us our current depression.1 The planners create an artificial demand by offering tax breaks for certain sectors like housing, insurance, or credit cards; they call them consumer incentives (generally things that put people into debt, because they don't understand the power in saving.)  They then, deregulate a specific sector to make it more enticing. Then by devaluing currency they inflate prices beyond reasonable value. When it's all over,  those who orchestrated it are surprised when it can't sustain itself, often leading us to believe "no one could have seen it coming." That is not entirely true, however. The Austrian economists saw it coming, they predicted it. In fact, they have predicted, with accuracy, exactly how and why the central planners would fail in every great collapse in the last century. Somehow, their warnings are still widely ignored.

A true free market has tons of regulation, just very little that is mandated by law. The mandates that would exist would be the same laws of equal liberty that apply to people.2 No business would have the right to take any actions that infringed on any individual or group of individuals rights or freedoms. For example, you don't need specific pollution mandates, which more often than not outline exactly what arbitrary amount of pollution is O.K. for business to put into your water sources, instead of saying business can't pollute period. In a free market, if you polluted my water source without my consent, I would own you. The law of equal liberty at that point clearly dictates that you are infringing on my rights, and it is the proper role of government to uphold the law of equal liberty when it is broken.

This brings me to a second form of regulation the unmandated regulation of consumer action. This form of regulation is part of our human nature, and it is our responsibly to hold businesses accountable for their actions. No business can continue to exist in a free market without customers who are willing to do business with them. So, let’s use the above case of the company and it’s decision to cheaply dispose of pollutants into our water again. Once they are taken to court and found guilty of any charges brought against them, It's the responsibility of us consumers to continue to hold them accountable and say, "Listen, I don't want what it is you are making until it is no longer negatively effecting the health of the communities around you." This company has a huge incentive never to pollute in the first place because the monetary losses from a law suit would be very damaging, but even worse would be the potential of future losses from the decrease in business because of customer dissatisfaction. This system holds businesses truly accountable for their actions. Instead, the current heavily regulated system first and foremost gives businesses a guide line of just how bad they can be with out having legal action taken against them. Then, in the cases that they do break those rules, they often receive special privileges in the courts in the form of lesser fines and or protection from any crimes committed all together. That is not a free market. Moreover, a free market any elected official who allowed a company, or individual for that matter, to break the laws would be guilty.

If I were to give you the location of an individual, I knew you intended to kill, and also gave you a gun, I would be an accessory to murder. Our politicians, as well as us for putting them in power and not holding them accountable, are accessories to murder: the murder of the free market and with it individual liberty.

-D

1) That's right, I called it what it is: a depression. They began calling the Great Depression as it was just over 12 months after it happened, and it was officially coined as such in 1934, less than five years after the crash. From 2007 to 2011 is a similar length of time. Instead, we are told that the recession is over. Suppose you had a glass of water and I poured half of it out. After your complaining for two years about having only half a glass of water, I come along again and tell you that the glass is now full. If you now believe you have more water, then you probably also believe the depression is over.

2) The law of equal liberty is a doctrine first named, although not first conceived, by Herbert Spencer in his book Social Statics in which he says "Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." Or, stated a better way by Spencer, "each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other." The concept of such liberty is present in the founding documents including The Federalist Papers, this is why Spencer is not credited with conception of the idea.

how deep the rabbit hole goes.

"every voice you’ve silenced and every life you’ve taken
recollections from your distant past
the tortured and the dying from a legacy of hatred
are back to echo in your ears screams you thought for sure wouldn’t last

because you can’t kill an idea, I will not be ruled…
you can’t kill and idea and we will not be ruled…

“disrupt misdirect isolate and neutralize”
like the Trudells who burned alive in ‘79
now those enemies of the hour are the focus of this moment
for as long as we are here every voice remains alive

because you can’t kill an idea, I will not be ruled…
you can’t kill an idea and we will not be ruled... by fear

I pledge no allegiance to the flag of the undeniable mistakes of america
which due to plutocracy for which it stands
so many nations and their gods have become invisible
with liberty and justice reserved for a precious chosen few
let our allegiances remain with those betrayed by the façade
for the calm is an illusion

the struggle is not over…it assumes new forms
for no matter what the face, no matter what the name,
it’s still…war"

war by other means - Trial

I posted these lyrics because I feel that they are more important today than they have ever been. I still believe this country to be exceptional in its founding, and the intent involved in that process. However, I am sickened by our government everyday. They ignore the laws in which this country was founded on, most of which limit their size scope and power. Only referring to them when it’s convenient to their cause, often purposefully distorting them.

For the longest time I was fooled by the political class of this country. When your eyes are finally opened, once you've taken that red pill, you wish you could go back, take the blue pill, and have your ignorance returned. You wish that you could stop being haunted by the truth. There is no one politician that can save us. Change means nothing as a campaign slogan, It comes from within ourselves. If we expect some one to do it for us, then we are fools.

I ask if you are reading this that you re-evaluate yourself, as I was logically forced to do. Think of what it is that you truly stand for. Is it individual liberty and freedom? or is it predetermined destinies chosen by a ruling class? Any mixture between the two is just a transition to the later. Will we continue to allow a small percentage of unqualified people in a distant capitol dictate how the rest of us live our lives? I ask you to name 5 things in your daily life that are not, in some way, regulated by government. you can’t? is that freedom?

They pit us against each other with, what are now, near meaningless labels: Republican, Democrat, Liberal, or Conservative. They tell us to pick a side, declare our allegiance,  and help fight the opposition, even if the opposition are those we consider friends. They know, as long as we are busy arguing with each other using the talking points they have laid out for us, the focus will be off of them. They are then free to lie to us, cheat us,  and steal from us. Only later, do they dangle the proverbial carrot, that is rightfully ours, back in-front of our faces as reward for doing their bidding. They ostracise any politicians that don’t play by their rules as idealist, kooks, or even insane. The worst part is: we go along.

I, for one, have had enough. I will no longer choose between the lesser of two evils, for the lesser of two evils is still inherently evil.  I choose to make up my own mind. I will not blindly fallow the platitudes of one political party simply because I voted for them, or chose at one point to affiliate with them. If I vote for you, and you lie to me, I will oppose you. If I make a mistake; I will learn from it. I will take responsibility for my own actions and what ever outcomes they yield. I will not be jealous of those who are more fortunate than me, and I will be as charitable as my time and income allow me to be. I will not fear what I do not understand, instead I will try harder to understand it. This is my pledge of allegiance, my pledge to individuality and freedom. In return I simply request that you, government, leave me alone.

-D

Don't Worry, I'm Molesting You for Your Own Safety.

So I’ve spent quite some time trying to decide what my next entry would be about. As new issues came up daily  I was getting better and better ideas for an entry, and leaving the old ones somewhere in my Google docs.  I finished several of them, only to realize later they weren’t in the vein of what this blog was for. They were things that mainstream media had blown out of proportion only to distract from what was really going on, and I was attempting to make sense of all the idiocy, which I thought I knew better than to do. So I then set out to write another politics 101 type entry about the abomination our “two party” system has become. Then this week happened. I will finish the aforementioned article and probably post it this month as well, to make up for missing October, but this weeks events have trumped everything, and sets the most dangerous precedent of any thing this year.

I am of course talking about the TSA and its new “safety” measures. For those of you that live under a rock, these new measures subject people of all ages to the “choice” of either going through a x-ray scanner that snaps a picture so that an agent can see through your clothing to ensure you have nothing on your person or, if you don’t like this naked photo shoot, getting a new and improved “palm in” pat-down that allows the TSA agent to feel every square inch of your body, and if they are unsure of what they feel, they are also allowed to feel under your clothes. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, little Sally can now look back on her life and remember that when she was three she either stared in her first porno or let some one get to second base with her. The TSA has a license to grope, and no one is too innocent, or innocent at all for that matter.

In some of my research*  for this entry I stumbled across one of the TSA’s new training videos. As my wife will attest, I have been no fan of the TSA for quite some time, I would imagine flying with me is about as pleasant as sitting next to a three-yea- old with a toothache, only with slightly more complaining. Until now I was only complaining of the grave inconvenience for nothing more than the illusion of security, and the concept of being guilty until proven innocent, which seems to be the starting premise for all of the TSA’s policies. This new measure, however, is so much more. It’s an infringement on our “inalienable” rights, it sets an extremely dangerous precedent, and lastly and least important its an insult to our intelligence.

Most important I want to begin with talking about our rights, which are really the only reason these new measures must be overturned. First we need to define some words. Words and their definitions are important. In the discussions so far, we have heard arguments about rights, liberties, and freedom, all of which are often being used wrong.  I want to assume nothing and define them. Rights are natural  they can not be taken away regardless of how hard anyone tries**. Rights are things such as speech, thought, the ability to defend one’s self, I think you get the picture. Freedoms and liberties are where most people get blurry. My favorite talk show host*** likes to ask people to define liberty without using the word freedom, and often, when I ask, people cannot. Freedoms are things we are able to do like drive a car, fart in public, and in this case fly. They aren’t things expressly undeniable by nature, but are obviously an important part of any free society. Liberties are the abilities to act, believe and express one’s self as one chooses without the unwelcomed intervention from a second or third party, i.e. government. We, in America, are lucky enough to live in a country with a constitution that protects our rights, freedoms, and liberties, but even if we weren’t my argument wouldn’t change (much). I have the right to private property, and nothing is more private than my privates, I am also afforded liberty, and I have the freedom to fly. I won’t insult you by explaining how these procedures infringe on my privates, but I do want to talk about the liberty and freedom part. Barring marshal law, my liberty means government should never force me to choose between my rights and my freedoms, which is exactly what is being done here. I am being told “give up your right to privacy, or don’t fly” and that is not a constitutional or free proposition. That is why this cannot stand unchallenged or in the words of The Dude, “This will not stand, ya know, this will not stand, man”

In some ways the precedent this sets is scarier than the fact that it ever came to this. If this procedure stands, it blatantly says that the government or any agency of government can take away our rights and freedoms as long as it’s in the name of “safety.” Gov Co. has been attempting this concept for quite some time, with things like seat belt and helmet laws, but never has it been done on this scale before. Since terrorism is always a possibility this essentially puts us in a constant state of marshal law.

Lastly I find this whole concept to be beyond insulting. We are expected to believe that this somehow makes us safe. That somehow we weren’t safe until every penis, vagina, and breast in America had been either felt up or photographed. We are to believe that this extremely expensive measure made more sense than airlines spending their own money to train their pilots in weapons and self-defense, which was outlawed. That instead of training these government agents like law enforcement with criminal profile training to simply ask you a few questions prior to boarding a flight,  we teach them to apply blanket “procedures” that are not to be interrupted by - God forbid!-  using common sense or having an original thought. That instead of saving billions by simply placing three air marshals on a flight, we should instead spend billions on expensive machines that will violate the 1,500,000 people that fly every day.  That instead of making sure that people that we have previous intelligence on are stopped from carrying out their attacks  like  9-11, the underwear bomber, and the Ft. Hood shootings, we should grope little children.

Honestly I can’t understand how anyone can stomach the idea of this, let alone going through it. There are literally no facts supporting the effectiveness of anything the TSA has done thus far, just speculations. To afford that organization these powers is unacceptable. Now if you excuse me I have to go beat my head up against the nearest brick wall. As always thank you for reading and I hope at the very least I made you think a little.

-D

*This is the first time I needed to do research for an entry and I wanted to share a little bit of my findings: The first commercial flight was in 1914.Regulated scheduling began in the late 1930s. The TSA was officially formed in 2003, obviously in response to 9-11, (now that’s speedy!).  There have been approximately 1,296,000,000 flights worldwide since the 30’s. Aproximately 1,500,000 people fly domestically in the U.S. every day. There have been a total  of 782 recorded hijackings worldwide, an undisclosed number of which were carried out by the CIA and the Cuban Intelligence Agency (also CIA, weird huh?) on their respective counterparts. Now I want you take a look at the total flights and total hijacking with me real quick. With a  drastically rounded down one  billion flights and a drastically rounded up 800 hijackings there is a .00008% chance of a flight being hijacked, not very scary when expressed in terms of  probability. I mean in no way to down play how traumatic the experience is, just recognize how very unlikely it is to happen.

** Taken away and oppressed are not the same thing, many governments suppress or deny rights, but they can’t truly take them away from you.

***I am in no way endorsed by my favorite talk show host or the company he works for. I hope they don’t sue me.

Like Ad-ROCK said, Let me clear my throat.

EHEHHEEMM...Now that’s out of the way, hello and welcome. Here is the disclaimer:

This is my blog, therefore, you will see my opinions here, most of them placed very soundly on a bed of facts and a foundation of economic principles, all of which I believe to be correct. While I respect your right to have an opinion, I don’t have to respect your opinion. So while I will try to respond to as many rebuttals filled with half baked “ideas” and accusations of my belonging to one political party or the other, I’ll probably ignore a lot of them. If you have read this far and I haven’t pissed you off, hold on; we’ll get there.

I want to start this thing off by outlining where it is I stand, you know, on the issues. I am not a Republican or a Democrat, I’m also not a Libertarian. More so, the fact that I ever fell victim to the jersey-wearing political game “they” want us all to play sickens me and is probably my underlining reason for doing this blog...thingy.  I consider myself to be a constitutionalist. Generally speaking a constitutionalist favors limited government, as prescribed by the Constitution. In the beliefs of the constitutionalist, such a government should be small not only in size but also in scope and in power. Government has no business telling individuals they can or can’t get married, where they can or can’t smoke, how much money they can make, how to drive their car,or  to wear a helmet, a seat belt, or underwear for that matter. More specifically  I know in order for a society to have the maximum amount of individual freedom and liberty for everyone, the government has three roles, and only three: dealing with and mediating externalities, operating technical monopolies, and upholding contractual agreements. That’s it.

If that list is nothing more than big words to you, let me help. I believe upholding contracts is pretty self-explanatory:  You sign a contract, someone breaks said contract, you need an impartial third party to mediate the dispute. Very similar are externalities, only these are things that we didn’t enter into a legal contract for. Externalities deal with the unwritten contract of trying to get along, and to generally be civil human beings. In a more Merriam-Webster sense, externalities are any decisions made by a party that negatively affects another party or  other parties that were uninvolved in the decision-making process. While at first this may seem open-ended, it’s pretty cut and dried. Things like murder, rape, theft and all the other big crimes obviously fall under this category. If someone decided to shoot you, you probably weren’t at the meeting, and if you had shown up I doubt they would have given you a vote. Externalities are also things such as, a meth lab in a populated neighborhood, a Ponzi scheme, or even something like the BP oil spill (if actual property damage or substantial pollution is done). In bringing up the BP oil spill I think it’s important to also outline How the government handles these situations. The point is not for government to demand a massive fund of money from the “offending” company, only  to dole it out to special interest groups that will in turn help the politicians’ campaigns. Rather it is to directly prove guilt or innocence in any legal actions brought on by the negatively affected parties. So if the oil spill had ruined your beach-shore property, or threw off your hotel’s business, you would sue BP for damages and the government would make sure (if BP were found guilty) that BP would be held accountable. If the affected parties were, say, dolphins which can’t find a good lawyer, then the government's responsibility is A) to clean up the mess, and give BP the bill or B) to just make sure BP is actually taking care of it. It is not, however, the job of government to arbitrarily point the finger of blame at a party, blame him for a disaster, and use the situation (whether it be real or one that they have created) to manipulate people into going along with their political agenda. ( I’m looking at you too Iraq war.)*

That brings us to technical monopolies, which are not the kind of Monopolies your teachers in school taught you about. (Those don’t actually exist). Technical monopolies do things that have to be done, regardless of the normal economic parameters that make a business idea viable. These include things such as the military, a space program, the sheriff’s dept., and interstates and highways. (Notice I didn’t just say roads.) It’s also important to understand that just because something is at one point in time a technical monopoly, does not mean it forever remains one. Take for instance the space program, right now it is not cost-effective, there is little demand in the private sector Because of time, safety, and generally nowhere to go. Regardless, it is still extremely important that we maintain a space program. In the distant future, however, when space travel is faster, maybe we will have colonized the moon and some planets, and maybe formed a nice trade agreement with some Twi’leks. You now have an environment that businesses could compete in, allowing space travel to be self-sustainable. Therefore, it would have gone from a technical monopoly to operating in the free market (if one still exists then), which  by the way is the only way this can evolve. If something can successfully exist in the free market, it will never have a reason to become a technical monopoly (other than politicians wanting to use it to buy votes). Lots of things are currently being treated as technical monopolies that aren’t, and in every case their private sector counter parts operate more efficiently on less money. The USPS and public schools come to mind, and I could write entirely separate entries about them. Maybe on a off week when not too much is happening, I will.**

Most of the time when I explain this to someone, they have one question left: “What about the poor?   We have social programs to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves, where would those fall into your government?” There is a very simple answer: Our social programs are always touted by the politicians who support them as exactly what they should be, but aren’t: charity. Private charities, again, operate with higher success rates on less denaro than any government social program. Eliminating government social programs would also get rid of a lot of unneeded animosities in our society, as people would then be freely giving to charity instead of being forced.*** So, there we are. That wasn’t so bad was it? Thanks for reading. Keep coming back, and maybe we can continue to learn together. You may have seen asterisks here and there, for some additional clarification if you didn’t understand my reference or point. You don’t have to read them as they are just there to clarify, and I felt they were generally not needed to get my point across

-D

*Side note on the Iraq war: I support our troops and, generally speaking, what we were doing over there. Saddam was an asshat, an asshat that we put into power. Therefore he was probably our mess to clean up. He was oppressing people and overall was a tyrant who needed to be taken out of power. THAT being said, the way the Bush administration just sorta popped that in, piggybacked on the fear and ultimately “patriotism” that culminated from 911 was disingenuous to say the least. We already had a war that needed to be fought, one, I think, we will ultimately be unsuccessful with due to the nine years the Taliban and other terrorist organizations have had to organize and plan. In short, taking Saddam out needed to happen sooner than later. However, following 911 was just the wrong time and more importantly the wrong way to finish Daddy’s laundry.

**Like I said, I could right a whole entry on public schools alone, this, however, is not it. Public schools are a great example of something that started off as a technical monopoly and no longer is. When formal school houses started popping up, cars didn’t exist, roads weren’t good and people were spread far out. If the government had not have facilitated this process the majority of people would not have gone to school, the schools would have went out of business, and we would have been a lesser civilization for it. However, that is no longer the case. We have better transportation and higher population density now. Generally speaking, we could have three times as many schools in certain areas than we do. It’s high time government gets out, stops taking our money, and lets us choose the schools we want our children to attend. Along with that, we would end the debate on prayer in school, busing, overcrowding, teacher wages, and  almost everything. Don’t want your kid to pray in school? Send them to a school that doesn’t pray or vice versa. Underpaid teacher? You’d have a bargaining chip in your students. You could take students with you. If you were good, students would follow you, much like people follow a good hair dresser to a new salon. Schools would compete to have the best teachers, ultimately getting good teachers paid what they were worth. (Not such great news for the bad teachers. Sorry.)

***The tax structure as it stands is essentially theft. Then the stolen money is being given to people who did not earn it. To better explain this we can take the government out of the equation. If Paul is carrying a brown bag of money that has 100 bucks in it, and I knock it out of his hands, take 50 dollars really quick, and hand it to a homeless guy three doors down, the homeless guy is going to like me. In fact, if I were to run for mayor he and all his homeless buddies might vote for me. But Paul is probably pretty pissed, not only at me, but also at the homeless guy who saw me steal the money but took it because he really needed it. Now I have created animosity between the two people, who without my intervention would have either had no feelings, or possibly even positive ones if Paul would have thrown the homeless dude a couple of bucks.