The Present in Plain Text

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot

As I sat in the pediatrician's office this morning waiting to be called for my son's appointment, I realized how fortunate I'd been to read this article by John Lott over the weekend. Lott explained that some doctors have begun grilling children about their parents' legal gun ownership, implicitly suggesting that children are at higher risk of injury and death if parents own firearms and, in some cases, they've even reported parents to local authorities if their kids answered in the affirmative.

The office secretary asked my wife to fill out a questionnaire prior to our meeting with the doctor, and sure enough, about halfway down the page under the heading "Safety Risks" was the question, "Do you have guns in your house?" Given that I didn't see an option for "None of your goddamn business," I urged my wife to answer 'No'. If I don't have guns in the house, well, I suppose our pediatrician doesn't need to worry about my kid getting shot with one of them; if I do have them in the house, however, at least I'll know I'll be prepared to defend my wife and son in the event an intruder attempts to harm them.

Perhaps the doc simply wants to know if her patients live among firearms so she can reinforce to parents the importance of keeping them out of the hands of irresponsible children or teaching youngsters how to handle them appropriately. If that's the case, I'd say she's just doing her job. However, I'm just not willing to take the chance that there are ulterior motives at play, especially since the police state only continues to grow by the day. After all, if I do own firearms legally, they're already registered with the state. I'd hardly need my kid's pediatrician and her proxies in the government meddling in my private affairs.

Questioning anyone's gun ownership is appalling in itself because no one has the right to tell us what we can or cannot own if we mind our own business and initiate no violence against others. And it's especially misplaced considering the fact that there are many everyday household products that are much more likely to harm kids than guns are. In fact, according to Lott:   

In 2003, for the United States, the Centers for Disease Control reports that 28 children under age 10 died from accidental shots. With some 90 million gun owners and about 40 million children under 10, it is hard to find any item as commonly owned in American homes, as potentially as lethal, that has as low of an accidental death rate.

[...]

Over 1,400 children were killed by cars, almost 260 of those deaths were young pedestrians. Bicycle and space heater accidents take many times more children’s lives than guns. Over 90 drowned in bathtubs. The most recent yearly data available indicates that over 30 children under age 5 drowned in five-gallon plastic water buckets.

So do yourselves a favor. The next time someone asks you whether or not you keep guns in your house, you may want to verify their motives before answering. The government will usurp enough of our rights by force; no need to take the chance that we're volunteering our freedoms away, too.

Romney Needs a Bong Hit

Speaking before the Conservative Leadership Conference, Mitt Romney called marijuana a "plague to our country."

"I believe marijuana is the gateway to drug use that is a plague to our children and a plague to our country," he said. "Medical marijuana is a Trojan horse for getting marijuana legalized. That is the last thing America needs. We do not need more drugs in our school [sic] and homes."

I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, but I'd guess that people like Clayton Holton actually need more drugs in their homes, especially when the one that would help him best cope with continuous pain is the one Romney and the current administration are the most hell-bent against legalizing. Anything to retain control over the rest of us, though, right?

It's sad that so many people buy into Romney's banal rhetoric and sensationalism, especially given that he speaks in complete abstractions. Does Romney really believe that drug quality is secondary to quantity? What if a cure for AIDS, heart disease, or lung cancer were to hit the market tomorrow? According to Romney, you ought not take these new drugs because that would mean you'd have "more" in your medicine cabinet tomorrow than you do today.

What a complete buffoon. The biggest problem plaguing the country today is hardly marijuana or any other drug; it's power-hungry politicians who believe they have any right at all to tell peaceful Americans how to live their lives.

Down the Slippery Slope Highway

California has banned smoking in cars with minors. Beginning next year, drivers will be fined $100 if they are caught smoking in a vehicle when anyone under the age of 18 is present.

"Protecting the health of our children is among government's highest responsibilities," said the bill's author, state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, a Democrat. "It is clear that increasing public awareness about the dangers of secondhand smoke is the right thing to do."

Yes, about as clear as a cloud of smoke. I know kids under 18 never smoke, but what happens when a 16-year-old is caught smoking behind the wheel? Is he, like..fined like..double, dude?

Though I oppose these totalitarian bans, I do believe there's room for debate when discussing the property rights of children who find themselves subjected to their parents' secondhand smoke. However, this debate is automatically convoluted by the fact that most roads are the property of the state. Were they privately owned, there would be little question as to the right of the roads' owners to police the behaviors of the drivers on their roads.

Furthermore, whereas the owners of private roads would have to weigh the consequences of such a ban, the state does not. Private ownership assumes that the proprietors of the roads have a vested interest in traffic volume, whether for the benefit of collecting revenues in the form of tolls, drawing consumers to local businesses, etc. The government, on the other hand, has no such concern because it can confiscate money from taxpayers at the point of a gun whenever it feels like it. This lays the groundwork for tyranny.

For the record, whenever I pass someone on the road who's smoking in a car filled with kids, especially with the windows rolled up, I roll my eyes in disbelief that a parent would act so irresponsibly. I know plenty of people who smoke cigarettes, and most of them make sure they don't subject other adults to their smoke, much less their own children. On Sunday, my wife and I brought our newborn son home from the hospital and I would never let anyone smoke in front of him. In short, it should be common sense that smoke that has the potential to harm the smoker at the very least doesn't help others who are essentially forced to breathe it in.

However, this in no way means the government has or should have the moral authority to forcibly impose restrictions on smoking. For one thing, many lawmakers already believe they have the right to prevent adults from smoking in private bars and restaurants, even though no bar owner can force someone to patronize his establishment. Therefore, it's a little naive to think that politicians really care more about the health of car passengers than they do about simply extending the scope of their activism and collecting more and more revenue in the form of fines as a result of these petty bans.

Moreover, just as taxes on cigarettes disproportionately harm the poor, so will fines that result from cigarette smoking. I wonder how politicians who claim they're "protecting children" with this smoking ban might reconcile their actions with the fact that taking a hundred bucks out of the purse of a single mom consequently takes food out of the mouths of her kids.

The fact of the matter is, there are any number of things that are potentially harmful to children. Should we likewise ban parents from giving kids too much chocolate cake or soda, from letting them stay up too late at night, or from allowing them to play contact sports? More to the point, if it's OK for the government to ban smoking in front of kids in cars, how long before it's banned in living rooms across America? How long before SWAT teams come barging through our front doors on tips that Dad's smoking a cigar on the deck after dinner while he's watching Junior play in the yard?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.    

CNN's Cafferty: Should We be Listening to Ron Paul?

Hit tip to the LRC Blog for this and the e-mail address:

CNN's Jack Cafferty just gave a wonderful report on Ron Paul, and has asked for his question of the day:

"Should more people be listening to what Ron Paul has to say?"

Tell him: caffertyfile@cnn.com

I did just that.  Here's the e-mail I sent, please do something similar:

Mr. Cafferty,

Absolutely.  We ignore him at our own peril.  Dr. Paul is the only presidential candidate willing to speak truth to power and the only one with the answers to most of our problems.  With humility, dignity and keen analytic skills he's the embodiment of what we should seek out in a public servant.

If we want to see Ron meet his fund-raising target of $12 million for the 4th quarter, it'll only happen if we build on the momentum created by the last $5 million.   

Ta,

5 Million? The Ron Paul Revolution wants $100 million!

So, the 3rd quarter fundraising numbers are in and the Ron Paul Campaign took in just under $5.1 million.  That's an eye-popping number that has the MSM all a-flutter as to how something like that could conceivably happen. 

I mean, they didn't donate to his campaign after all, which, in my mind, is a very good thing.  Personally, most all of them aren't invited to the R-EVOL-ution, notably Chris "Oh God!" Matthews, who got whacked by John Stewart recently,and this Nora O'Donnell at BSNBC, who couldn't look less thrilled if she'd just found out her daughter was a stripper. 

In response to the very successful end of the quarter fund-raising campaign which drew in $1.2 million in 7 days, the Paul Campaign has raised the bar again, to $4 million per month for 3 months, so they can have a solid war chest on hand for the early primary states. 

Personally, I gave $100 of that $1.2 million last week, and am prepared to donate more during this next quarter as funds make themselves available.  But, on top of that I have signed this pledge to raise $100 million by January 1st.  The pledge is simple...

"I will donate $100 but only if 1,000,000 other people will do the same."

As of this writing the number of pledges stands at 967, but that rate is beginning to increase.  If the response from the news of his 3rd quarter totals is anything like the response from the 2nd quarter, I think the campaign will reach their fund-raising goals with ease.  If this pledge drive is successful, well, it would seem to me that the MSM and their masters will be the only ones not participating in the revolution.

Ta,

How many Republicans Reject War/Socialism?

From the NRO blog linked to at the LRC Blog this morning:

"Raising the question of how many Ron Paul supporters are truly
Republicans... How many lifelong Republicans look at a field of ten
other candidates (if you include Thompson) and say, "I reject all of
them"?"

Let's see how many ways I can answer this question:

1) Those who voted for Reagan and, possibly, Goldwater?
2) Those who are tired of voting against false Boogey-(Wo)men Democrats?
3) Those who quote: "Held their nose and voted for Bush?"
4) Those who've read the Constitution?
5) Those whose image of the Republican Party started with Taft and not Lincoln?

and most importantly...

6) Apparently a whole lot more than he thought.

and those are just the ones I can come up with in 5 minutes at work.  I'm sure if we worked at it we could add to my meager list and then send them all to Mr. Geraghty.

Ta,

I Guess I'm a "Paulnut"

Hey, Tex, I too can't believe I once had a subscription to National Review. Here is Richard Brookhiser on libertarian nutjobs like Ron Paul and those of us who endorse freedom.

So "Ron Paul is a pencil head, leading a jacquerie of wicked idiots." That sure is some top-flight analysis right there, especially from a publication that purports to partake in serious political commentary. I think I'd rather belong to a "jacquerie of wicked idiots" than a coterie of establishment hacks content to cede their (and my) liberty to the state, thank you very much.

And incidentally, whose ad appears at top right of the screen shot up there? Apparently "pencil head" is good enough for advertising revenue just as long as he keeps his ideas to himself. 

It's a Good Thing Tasers Aren't Lethal

Otherwise I'd have to add CBS to that nefarious list of those who are undermining the security of Amerika by reporting the contrary.  From the LRC blog:

CBS' "Early Show" reported this morning that more than 11,000 police departments are now equipped with tasers, compared to only 700 six years ago. They're probably funded from the "Homeland Security" pork barrel. The show interviewed a young woman who got drunk at a wedding and ended up with 32 taser burns in her pants. The video showed a cop kicking her while she was already on the ground. She tries to stand up and he tasers/electrocutes her again, causing her to fall and hit her head on the side of her car.

Our local serve-and-protect tax collector/bureaucrats have killed 200 of us by taser electrocution in the past five years according to CBS. [emphasis mine]

Thanks to Tom DiLorenzo for blogging this heretical statistic this morning.  He can now safely have his place on the Gov't list for eventual re-education revalidated.

"....you have nowhere to go." -- Robot Cop from THX-1138

Ta,

Quoted in the WaPo

Yours truly is quoted today in the Washington Post on the Montgomery County (Md.) trans-fat ban.

Trevor Bothwell, author of the Who's Your Nanny? blog, was one of several writers who took aim recently at Montgomery's health initiatives in the blogosphere.

"There are a lot of things that are dangerous -- sweets, staying up too late," said Bothwell, who has blogged about Montgomery's plan even though he lives in Calvert County. "Are we really going to regulate everything?"

That's all that made it out of a 30-minute interview and it's not exactly a quote to set the world afire, but hey, can't be a choosy beggar. And I actually felt sorry for the reporter, who had to make sense of who-knows-how-many tangents I went off on during our phone conversation -- there's a reason I stick to print media.

One of the best questions I was asked is what I perceive to be the driving force behind this nanny-state legislation. Montgomery County's trans-fat ban is not a result of obesity in general or certain types of cooking oil in particular; this ban is a result of socialism. If we didn't believe we have some inherent societal obligation to foot the bills for unhealthy people in the first place, what difference would it make whether someone is fit or unfit? That's an issue for an individual and his or her health insurance company, not for random politicians and other strangers. If your insurance won't cover you if you exceed a certain weight, you'll either regulate your own diet to comply with their requirements, find a new carrier who will insure you regardless, or go uninsured. It's hardly my responsibility what you put in your mouth because I shouldn't be expected to pay for the consequences of your actions.

Another good question was whether I thought the U.S. is growing less free or whether it merely seems like it is. Clearly the intent of this web log is to expose various tyrannical and totalitarian acts on the part of the state, but I don't really want to come across as a hysteric, either. Certainly the U.S. is still one of the freer places to live, and, indeed, I'd like to be able to play a small role in helping to keep it that way. But my point is that it could, and most definitely should, be even more free. So as for trends in freedom, I have to admit I'm not entirely sure whether things are getting better or worse -- but I'll give it my best shot.

Americans have always been taxed, though at the time of the nation's founding there was no income tax, and even prior to WWII, very few Americans paid an income tax. Today, however, the federal government and the states routinely confiscate our property in the form of incomes taxes, among others. It seems we've grown decidedly less free over the years with regard to the frivolity with which the state views our property. A win for oppression.

Of course, then there's voting. Whereas blacks and women were once discriminated against, they are free to vote today. Obviously a win for freedom. Alcohol was once prohibited and is today legal; but then again, heroin, opium, and cocaine were legal back in the day and today are illegal. I guess that's a wash.

And then there's the draft. A generation ago, every male 18 or over would be stressing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because it was legal for the state to send you to your death even if you dissented. With any luck no American will ever have to live under that degree of tyranny again. We have most definitely grown more free in this regard since Vietnam.

Sadly, there is no such thing as true freedom in this country. Even the protections "guaranteed" by the Bill of Rights have been pissed on by the Supreme Court and various state and federal courts over the years. But even though it seems like the government does little more than trample the liberties we used to have, I'd have to say that we're probably more free today than we were only a hundred years ago.

However, this has much less to do with the state than it does with the free market and technology. Even poor people today have widespread access to televisions, cell phones, and, most importantly, the internet. Not to mention, the handful of publicly funded radio and television stations of yesterday are being replaced by private companies offering hundreds of different options. Google, Yahoo! mail, Ipods, Iphones, OnStar -- we have more access to information and are interconnected with more people than ever before in history.

So, yes, all the smoking bans, cell phone bans, and trans-fat bans are nothing to write home about and indeed trample individual rights. And aside from the simple nanny-statism advanced by these bans alone -- where the state progressively erodes our liberties by increasingly treating us all like children -- I think we feel as if we're growing less and less free today simply because we own so many different types of property that the state regulates and attempts to control. However, I also think the fact that we own (and have the means to own) so much property (land, cars, guns, microwaves, toilets, computers, bars, restaurants, whatever) is decent proof that we're actually freer than our predecessors, in many different ways.

In short, we are free despite that state, not because of it. The government cannot "grant" rights to anyone; it can merely erode our natural rights to life, liberty, and property. So while our lives may not be universally bad, they're not universally good, either. If people aren't willing to stand up for their rights -- even their right to eat a heart-attack-on-a-plate or smoke four packs a day -- you can bet that one day those rights will be stolen by do-gooder politicians. The people should continually erode the rights of the state, not the other way around.

Whether we're more or less free at any particular point in history is more or less irrelevant. Tyranny is tyranny, no matter the degree.

Robbin' Hood

Whenever a government is controlled by a single party, it's only a matter of time before abuses of power become the order of the day. We saw it when a Republican Congress teamed with President Bush to effect record spending increases, pass monstrous entitlement benefits, and slap more pork onto bills than you could at most rib diners. And it's no different with Democrats, who are generally known as unapologetic tax-and-spenders.

So it was only a matter of time before first-term Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley would take advantage of his Democratic legislature and begin hiking taxes. Even I figured he'd wait a year before he started to trash the state's economy, but hard charger that he is, I guess he's decided to really get a jump on things. According to the Washington Post (which, incidentally, endorsed Republican incumbent Gov. Robert Ehrlich last year in an attempt to promote fiscal sanity in Maryland):

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) proposed increasing the state sales tax from 5 to 6 percent yesterday and applying the levy to several services that are currently exempt, including health clubs, tanning salons and real estate property management.

Aides said that O'Malley's proposal would generate $804 million a year, making it the largest component of a plan that he is rolling out over several days to bridge a looming $1.7 billion budget shortfall and raise nearly $400 million more for transportation projects.

Interesting, isn't it, how so many politicians automatically decide to jump into our wallets for more of our money instead of actually cutting programs that aren't even funded? What would you or I have to do if we bought a car on credit but realized we couldn't afford to pay off the loan? Would it be legal for us to force our neighbors to pay for the car, or would we have to sell it to satisfy our fiscal obligation?

Even though Maryland faces a $1.7 billion budget shortfall, the state is still spending money it doesn't have. And here's the kicker: O'Malley and state Democrats claim there is a need to raise taxes, but they're the ones who have increased the budget by $1.3 billion and erased a cash surplus left by the outgoing Ehrlich. No worries, though, Gov! We taxpayers will just pretend you have no control over the budget and cover all your bills for you.

Despite hews and cries to the contrary, there's actually an easy way for Gov. O'Malley to relieve taxpayers of the $400 million burden of his transportation projects -- it's called privatizing the bridges and roads. When I moved to Maryland in 1996, Democrat Parris Glendening was governor, a post he held until 2003. During his tenure the state sales tax remained constant at 5 percent, a rate that was upheld during Ehrlich's administration from 2003 to 2007. So, congratulations, Mr. O'Malley. You'll be the first governor in at least ten years to raise the sales tax, even though Maryland is the richest state in the country and filled with residents who hardly need to rely on the state for services. (Would it be too cynical to assume the governor is expanding state programs simply because he believes residents can afford to pay for them?)

Even more troubling is O'Malley's plan to raise income taxes on families that make $200,000 per year or more, and on singles who make $150,000 or more. These exact figures weren't specified in the Post's report, but your intrepid freelancer caught the facts on the local TV news last night. During his press conference, O'Malley did his finest Julius Caesar/FDR impression by singing the praises of class warfare, where he essentially justified protection of the "poor" at the expense of the "rich."

It is clear that Gov. O'Malley expects the government to play Robin Hood. However, whereas Robin Hood is generally understood to be a fictional character who stole from the nobles of England to give money back to the serfs who were taxed excessively, Maryland's governor is instead perverting this age-old tale by advocating excessive, unjust taxation of those he identifies as having means and giving to those he deems without. Indeed, Gov. O'Malley intends to exercise executive privilege to confiscate private property because he apparently knows what's good for you and how best to spend your money. With no intent to reconcile his actions with the concept of morality, Martin O'Malley wants to reward the lazy by taking from the hardworking.

In no uncertain terms, these new punitive income taxes will harm Maryland's economy. When government promises to take your money simply because you have the audacity to work harder to make more of it, people will intentionally pull up short of hitting the magic income mark. Sure, existing millionaires will automatically be hit with the higher tax, but people who are independently wealthy also have good enough accountants to find loopholes in the laws, too.

It's the non-millionaires who will be screwed the hardest. Entrepreneurs young and old who contemplate opening a business will eventually decide it's not worth the hassle. Having to absorb the high costs of government regulations is bad enough; knowing the state targets you simultaneously just for being successful is even worse. Corporate investment will literally decrease overnight because of this government mind-fuck. This means fewer companies -- companies that otherwise would have hired employees; employees that would have turned right around and spent their earnings elsewhere. In short, higher taxes stifle economic growth. They mean less production, less earning, and less commerce.

It seems naive to talk of eliminating taxes altogether when I'd give just about anything for my tax rates to simply stay the same instead of going up again, but I feel compelled. If Maryland really wanted to reduce its budget deficit and further stimulate the economy, it would immediately eliminate the income tax for corporations and individuals. Companies and consumers that were free to trade with one another absent government interference would generate untold revenue for the state in sales tax alone.

Of course, this isn't an endorsement of a sales tax in any way; I'd like to see that eliminated as well. With the amount of business that would pour into the state as a result of this newfound freedom, the state could exist off a virtually imaginary consumption tax. Heck, if the government was limited to only its most essential duties, such as protecting the rights and property of its citizens (as opposed to trampling our liberties and stealing property, as it does currently), the state could sustain itself with a lottery alone. However, given that Maryland can't even agree on installing a few slot machines around the state to generate tax revenue, one has to believe it would faster confiscate money from all of us at the point of a gun rather than allow gamblers to relieve themselves of it voluntarily.

Yes, Maryland, the times will be getting worse before they get better. But hey, when you find yourself complaining as even the taxes on cigarettes and gasoline and fees to title and register vehicles go up and up and up, remember one thing: More than half of you voted for Martin O'Malley and his enablers in the state legislature. You really have no one to blame but yourselves.