Strange that so few people understand that hope is contingent upon having the freedom to make your own value choices and make their achievement your personal dream. Without the dream, there is no hope. Without the value choice, there is no dream.
Understanding this simple fact makes Obama's idea of big government dictated values a hope-killer. Hope becomes an illusion, an empty promise, a delusion of the masses when the special interests that control government replace personal value choices by each of us with their enforced value choices. The way his administration is playing out is making this "hope" phantasm all too apparent.
28 July 2013
23 July 2013
Obama Year 5 Economic Recovery Collapse
The 22 July 2013 Wall St. Journal headlined "Growth Outlook Stuck in Neutral." It reports how slightly rosier economic predictions earlier in the year are proving to be too optimistic. It notes that the expected Second Quarter growth has been downgraded to a mere 1.5%, down from an expectation one month earlier that it would grow at an annualized rate of 1.9%. Recall, as I often point out, that since population growth is about 1% a year, real per capita GDP growth is about 1% less than the real GDP growth. Consequently, the Second Quarter growth projection is actually only 0.5% in terms of an improved standard of living and in terms of serving employers to think about hiring. Of course employers are mostly converting people to part time jobs thanks to ObamaCare, so most new hires are a downgrade from a full-time job somewhere to a part time job somewhere else. This in turn has caused a sudden decrease in retail spending to only 0.4% in June, which is really -0.6% when corrected for population growth. Worries are rising that the second half of 2013 will not live up to earlier expectations also.
Once again, the expectations of the Obama administration, or at least its and its media running dogs public announcements, have proven wrong on predictions of an improving economy. In fact, Obama is wrong for the fifth time out of five such claims. The man and his supporters are remarkably consistent in being wrong. This, of course, comes from being remarkably wrongheaded in their aims and in their understanding of the economy. Strangely enough, it proves impractical to thwart the economic rights of individual entrepreneurs. Who could ever have imagined that!
The recoveries of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and now of 2013 have all collapsed. But Americans, just keep going on about your business and keep that faith in Hope and Change, and love that Obama smile. Keep moving on. There is nothing to see here.
Once again, the expectations of the Obama administration, or at least its and its media running dogs public announcements, have proven wrong on predictions of an improving economy. In fact, Obama is wrong for the fifth time out of five such claims. The man and his supporters are remarkably consistent in being wrong. This, of course, comes from being remarkably wrongheaded in their aims and in their understanding of the economy. Strangely enough, it proves impractical to thwart the economic rights of individual entrepreneurs. Who could ever have imagined that!
The recoveries of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and now of 2013 have all collapsed. But Americans, just keep going on about your business and keep that faith in Hope and Change, and love that Obama smile. Keep moving on. There is nothing to see here.
21 July 2013
Signing Up to be a Federal Government Contractor
Years ago, I signed my laboratory, Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc., up as a federal contractor under the system the government was using at the time. I was submitting an SBIR proposal which turned out to be in competition with about 60 other small businesses for a research and development grant. About 6 weeks after these 60 small companies went to great expense to submit their proposals, the agency sent us a letter that said that because some other agency had requested a rather similar proposal a year earlier, they were not going to fund any grants under this request for proposals at all. There was, of course, no apology for the agency's lack of homework in requesting the proposals and no expression of sorrow for the blow to the many small companies who never even had a chance to get a return on their investment. Federal government bureaucrats simply are unable to imagine the harm they do. I decided that applying for SBIRs was just too risky for my business and went years without applying for any contracts.
Recently, I performed two analyses for a federal agency which so impressed it that it decided it wanted five more such analyses. These individual analyses were performed for three thousand dollars apiece and could be paid for with a credit card. Over the years since my last bad SBIR experience, any work I had done for the federal government was performed at its request for credit card payment without the formality of being a registered government contractor. As a result, my company did not need to be in the federal contractor system until this agency just requested that I respond to their RFQ for 5 more analyses on a contract.
So, I spent much of Thursday afternoon and evening and Friday afternoon setting my laboratory up in the new federal contractor system call SAM. This system is integrated with Dun and Bradstreet, so I had to update my listing there and figure out how to get SAM to update obsolete information it had from an old set of data from years ago from Dun and Bradstreet. Even before I could do that, I had to figure out how to get the system to authorize me to update the information it had imported from the old system in use years ago when I had put in a proposal for the ill-fated SBIR. Then I had to wait until Friday to get that authorization.
Among the remaining tasks was the required reading of 45 FAR and DFARS requirements placed upon federal contractors on a host of issues. One has to affirm that one is in compliance with each. To understand these federal requirements, one is often referred to various laws. In one case, one is told that the definition of an entity is to be found in a law and that it is different than the meaning the IRS gives to the same identifier in the Internal Revenue Code. Apparently, small business owners have an infinite amount of time that bureaucrats and Congressmen can assume is readily dedicated to the finer points of their games. No links are provided to the laws in question.
Once again, I am most impressed that the federal government has absolutely no sense of what expenses in time and effort it is appropriate to impose upon small businesses to do the work which the federal government is unable to do for itself. For the government to have any ability at all to pose as competent, it has to turn to contractors to do its work. Yet, when it does so, it does its darnedest to impose many of the inefficiencies and irrelevancies of the government bureaucracy on companies of the private sector. It has no concern whatsoever for the value of the small business management's time. None.
What the federal bureaucracy does care about is that it appears to have some concern for the issues of these FAR and DFARS. If some contractor does violate one of them, it wants to be able to slam the responsible parties into prison or to heavily fine them. Woe to the small business owner who rushes through these requirements without understanding them. Woe to the small business owner who uses the time he could be using to earn a living to thoroughly understand these requirements. This is a Catch-22 common to dealing with Big Government.
Many a small business simply cannot afford the assumed level of understanding and hence assumes a level of risk which the average citizen has no concern about, just as the bureaucrat and the Congress and the President have on concern. Big government does not like small businesses. It cannot comprehend a business which is less than very large. Small businesses with resources that actually have to be earned the old-fashioned way with hard work simply live in a different world from governments. Business owners are also a minority, so they count little at election time. Indeed, most politicians think it makes nothing but sense to treat small business owners as villains while courting the votes of the worker bees. Basically, government justifies its intrusiveness in everyone's life almost entirely upon the claim that business owners are villains and only Big Government can control them. So, who cares how much time government forces these villains to waste? It really is all very logical.
But, what would the private sector be without small businesses? It is odd that few voters ever give much thought to the function of government, either what is does or what it should do. It is even more odd that few voters think about the critical role of small businesses in the private sector that has to produce the wealth and perform the tasks so profligately squandered by Big Government.
Recently, I performed two analyses for a federal agency which so impressed it that it decided it wanted five more such analyses. These individual analyses were performed for three thousand dollars apiece and could be paid for with a credit card. Over the years since my last bad SBIR experience, any work I had done for the federal government was performed at its request for credit card payment without the formality of being a registered government contractor. As a result, my company did not need to be in the federal contractor system until this agency just requested that I respond to their RFQ for 5 more analyses on a contract.
So, I spent much of Thursday afternoon and evening and Friday afternoon setting my laboratory up in the new federal contractor system call SAM. This system is integrated with Dun and Bradstreet, so I had to update my listing there and figure out how to get SAM to update obsolete information it had from an old set of data from years ago from Dun and Bradstreet. Even before I could do that, I had to figure out how to get the system to authorize me to update the information it had imported from the old system in use years ago when I had put in a proposal for the ill-fated SBIR. Then I had to wait until Friday to get that authorization.
Among the remaining tasks was the required reading of 45 FAR and DFARS requirements placed upon federal contractors on a host of issues. One has to affirm that one is in compliance with each. To understand these federal requirements, one is often referred to various laws. In one case, one is told that the definition of an entity is to be found in a law and that it is different than the meaning the IRS gives to the same identifier in the Internal Revenue Code. Apparently, small business owners have an infinite amount of time that bureaucrats and Congressmen can assume is readily dedicated to the finer points of their games. No links are provided to the laws in question.
Once again, I am most impressed that the federal government has absolutely no sense of what expenses in time and effort it is appropriate to impose upon small businesses to do the work which the federal government is unable to do for itself. For the government to have any ability at all to pose as competent, it has to turn to contractors to do its work. Yet, when it does so, it does its darnedest to impose many of the inefficiencies and irrelevancies of the government bureaucracy on companies of the private sector. It has no concern whatsoever for the value of the small business management's time. None.
What the federal bureaucracy does care about is that it appears to have some concern for the issues of these FAR and DFARS. If some contractor does violate one of them, it wants to be able to slam the responsible parties into prison or to heavily fine them. Woe to the small business owner who rushes through these requirements without understanding them. Woe to the small business owner who uses the time he could be using to earn a living to thoroughly understand these requirements. This is a Catch-22 common to dealing with Big Government.
Many a small business simply cannot afford the assumed level of understanding and hence assumes a level of risk which the average citizen has no concern about, just as the bureaucrat and the Congress and the President have on concern. Big government does not like small businesses. It cannot comprehend a business which is less than very large. Small businesses with resources that actually have to be earned the old-fashioned way with hard work simply live in a different world from governments. Business owners are also a minority, so they count little at election time. Indeed, most politicians think it makes nothing but sense to treat small business owners as villains while courting the votes of the worker bees. Basically, government justifies its intrusiveness in everyone's life almost entirely upon the claim that business owners are villains and only Big Government can control them. So, who cares how much time government forces these villains to waste? It really is all very logical.
But, what would the private sector be without small businesses? It is odd that few voters ever give much thought to the function of government, either what is does or what it should do. It is even more odd that few voters think about the critical role of small businesses in the private sector that has to produce the wealth and perform the tasks so profligately squandered by Big Government.
Ethanol Mandate to Add Twenty to Thirty-Five Cents Per Gallon in 2014 to Gas Cost
The 20-21 July 2013 Wall Street Journal notes that the ever-increasing ethanol requirement would now force refiners to exceed the 10% ethanol content in gasoline over which consumers will not go. Consequently, the refiners are forced to buy Renewable Energy Credits at great expense. These are called RINs. This is increasing the cost of gasoline by about 10 cents a gallon. Because the mandate requirement goes up each year and the cost of RINs is skyrocketing, the cost per gallon in 2014 due to the ethanol mandate is expected to be between 20 and 35 cents a gallon!
Obama's wish to see gasoline prices skyrocket is being promoted by his administration by limiting oil production on federal land and off-shore, by limiting oil refinery capacity, by limiting pipeline construction, and with the ethanol mandate. His White House energy adviser, Heather Zichal, is still making the false claim that ethanol use reduces climate change! This is just one of many ways in which Obama's ideas and supporters are very old-fashioned. Add this to the old-timers list of Marxism, peak-oil, environmental doom, and a longing for a ruling aristocracy dedicated to caring for the incompetent peasant masses, while enjoying the honors and wealth of their ruling positions.
As I have pointed out many times, ethanol use neither decreases pollution nor increases the energy supply, contrary to the claims made in 2007 when the ethanol mandate was put into effect. The ethanol mandate would be repealed if Congress were at all interested in the best interest of the People. That Congress has left this mandate in effect is proof-positive of the venality of Congress. That they cannot be bothered to repeal such an unnecessary expense for Americans informs us of how little they actually do represent us.
Obama's wish to see gasoline prices skyrocket is being promoted by his administration by limiting oil production on federal land and off-shore, by limiting oil refinery capacity, by limiting pipeline construction, and with the ethanol mandate. His White House energy adviser, Heather Zichal, is still making the false claim that ethanol use reduces climate change! This is just one of many ways in which Obama's ideas and supporters are very old-fashioned. Add this to the old-timers list of Marxism, peak-oil, environmental doom, and a longing for a ruling aristocracy dedicated to caring for the incompetent peasant masses, while enjoying the honors and wealth of their ruling positions.
As I have pointed out many times, ethanol use neither decreases pollution nor increases the energy supply, contrary to the claims made in 2007 when the ethanol mandate was put into effect. The ethanol mandate would be repealed if Congress were at all interested in the best interest of the People. That Congress has left this mandate in effect is proof-positive of the venality of Congress. That they cannot be bothered to repeal such an unnecessary expense for Americans informs us of how little they actually do represent us.
17 July 2013
The Obama Economic Stagnation and Real American Growth
As government takes control over more and more of the wealth of the nation, the economy staggers. Obama is the quintessential Big Government man who has no appreciation for the fact that our real standard of living is improved not by government, but by private sector enterprises. But improving most Americans standard of living takes time, and today very many Americans seem to want to benefit from government redistributions that will immediately transfer the wealth created by a minority to a majority less able or willing to create that wealth. This is a short-sighted aim even for the immediate beneficiary, since redistribution results in the total wealth of the society becoming smaller over time than it would otherwise become. It is also generally the case that those who think they will benefit from the forced transfer of wealth will fall victim to exaggerated promises and condemn their own children to a much more bleak future. Others believe that some under-performing or disadvantaged Americans will be better off if forced transfers of wealth occur, but do not think that many such people will be better off over a greater part of their lives if the whole American economy grows healthily than if it does not.
If you are a 30-year-old American today, you are probably going to work until you are 70 years old. The size of the American economy in 40 years will have a big impact on the quality of your retirement, not to mention many of the years between now and then. Let us suppose you actually want your children to live in an economy that offers a much higher standard of living than we have now. The median American mother is now 31 years old, which means that barring changes in that, her children will be having their own children a median 31 years from now. Let us consider the size of the American economy 31 years from now under various growth rates to see how this newly long generation of 31 years will affect the next generation of children.
Of course we are interested in using real GDP numbers, not the nominal numbers affected by games played upon the money supply. Unfortunately, the actual numbers reported by the government for real GDP are not fully corrected for inflation, but we will assume future numbers will be truthful. In addition, in terms of its impact on our standard of living, we must be aware that the U.S. population has been growing by about 1% a year. Thus, a real GDP growth of 2.0 %, the rate of GDP increase under the last four years under Obama, is really only a real per capita GDP of 1.0 %. Note also that when America had much less government, it was able to sustain long-term real growth rates of 5 and 6%. The following plot shows how the real, per capita size of an economy will grow over a generation of 31 years assuming a continued population growth rate of 1% a year.
So, assuming that the 2.0% growth rate under Obama is continued for 31 years, as one expects given his anti-business policies, the real per capita GDP will only be 36.1% larger then than now. How incredibly disappointing that will be! On the other hand, were the government to shrink considerably, we might easily average a real GDP growth rate of 5% a year and the real per capita GDP would be 3.373 times its present size in 31 years. The Obama economy is easy to imagine and little different than the present economy. The small government per capita economy would be two full U.S. present economies larger than the Obama economy and such a robust and innovative economy is really very difficult to imagine. But, such an economy will make almost every American much, much richer and much, much more secure than we are now. Such an economy is worlds better than the Obama economy in terms of our standard of living.
Note that each additional percent of real GDP growth makes more and more difference to the future economy. This curve has a strong upward bend, so any act of the government that makes it harder for businesses to grow takes a great deal away from our future. If government regulations and new mandates by law make it harder for a company to even manage to match its last years income, we all pay for this in the long run. And no, I am not talking about when we will be dead. I am talking about long before recent college graduates will retire and the entire lives of their children.
One really needs to think about it when the EPA says that generating a bit more CO2 than they want us to will just conceivably cause a fraction of a degree higher temperature in 87 years so we should give up one or two percent of future GDP growth for this reason. The damage of doing that to all of us is certainly much greater than any damage to the environment. Indeed, I have shown over and over that the science used to make these claims is bad and the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis is simply wrong.
Or take the wild claims of the EPA that mercury produced by coal-fired power plants has significant health consequences, so we should pay higher electricity costs to replace those power plants with much more expensive and unreliable power plants with their own environmental problems. This EPA ruling also has important consequences for the growth rates of our economy.
We need to remember that every new paperwork requirement put on businesses also takes resources that they could otherwise be using to improve their products and services or their marketing efforts in a world market. Businesses suffer greatly from the thousands of little cuts that unthinking state and federal legislators and state and federal bureaucrats just love to make, of course while acting as though they are saving the average American from some harm.
In fact, most of this is pretense. Almost every business wants to improve the lives of its customers. That is how they make money. At least the majority who have no special favors from government do. Yes, there are some state-regulated monopolies who are less well-behaved and there are crony mercantile companies such as Obama's green energy companies who are simply trying to take advantage of us. But, these are companies corrupted by Big Government and eliminating it will also eliminate companies that no longer care to bring in customers on a voluntary basis for each others mutual benefit.
If you are a 30-year-old American today, you are probably going to work until you are 70 years old. The size of the American economy in 40 years will have a big impact on the quality of your retirement, not to mention many of the years between now and then. Let us suppose you actually want your children to live in an economy that offers a much higher standard of living than we have now. The median American mother is now 31 years old, which means that barring changes in that, her children will be having their own children a median 31 years from now. Let us consider the size of the American economy 31 years from now under various growth rates to see how this newly long generation of 31 years will affect the next generation of children.
Of course we are interested in using real GDP numbers, not the nominal numbers affected by games played upon the money supply. Unfortunately, the actual numbers reported by the government for real GDP are not fully corrected for inflation, but we will assume future numbers will be truthful. In addition, in terms of its impact on our standard of living, we must be aware that the U.S. population has been growing by about 1% a year. Thus, a real GDP growth of 2.0 %, the rate of GDP increase under the last four years under Obama, is really only a real per capita GDP of 1.0 %. Note also that when America had much less government, it was able to sustain long-term real growth rates of 5 and 6%. The following plot shows how the real, per capita size of an economy will grow over a generation of 31 years assuming a continued population growth rate of 1% a year.
Note that each additional percent of real GDP growth makes more and more difference to the future economy. This curve has a strong upward bend, so any act of the government that makes it harder for businesses to grow takes a great deal away from our future. If government regulations and new mandates by law make it harder for a company to even manage to match its last years income, we all pay for this in the long run. And no, I am not talking about when we will be dead. I am talking about long before recent college graduates will retire and the entire lives of their children.
One really needs to think about it when the EPA says that generating a bit more CO2 than they want us to will just conceivably cause a fraction of a degree higher temperature in 87 years so we should give up one or two percent of future GDP growth for this reason. The damage of doing that to all of us is certainly much greater than any damage to the environment. Indeed, I have shown over and over that the science used to make these claims is bad and the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis is simply wrong.
Or take the wild claims of the EPA that mercury produced by coal-fired power plants has significant health consequences, so we should pay higher electricity costs to replace those power plants with much more expensive and unreliable power plants with their own environmental problems. This EPA ruling also has important consequences for the growth rates of our economy.
We need to remember that every new paperwork requirement put on businesses also takes resources that they could otherwise be using to improve their products and services or their marketing efforts in a world market. Businesses suffer greatly from the thousands of little cuts that unthinking state and federal legislators and state and federal bureaucrats just love to make, of course while acting as though they are saving the average American from some harm.
In fact, most of this is pretense. Almost every business wants to improve the lives of its customers. That is how they make money. At least the majority who have no special favors from government do. Yes, there are some state-regulated monopolies who are less well-behaved and there are crony mercantile companies such as Obama's green energy companies who are simply trying to take advantage of us. But, these are companies corrupted by Big Government and eliminating it will also eliminate companies that no longer care to bring in customers on a voluntary basis for each others mutual benefit.
Americans Have Become So Wealthy, the Middle Class is Disappearing
According to the constant theme of the Democrat Socialist Party, the American Middle Class is disappearing because more people are poor than ever. Well, despite the best efforts of those who are constantly trampling upon our rights to earn a living, as I have pointed out before, the Middle Class is disappearing because many more Americans are rising up out of it. A recent post at the AEI Ideas blog shows this very well:
This chart is based on Census Bureau income data which is given in constant 2009 dollars. I would certainly question the idea that the lower bound of the Middle Income Group is $25,000 a year and would set that at least at $35,000, but that would not change the fact that the percentage of families in the Middle Incomes is dropping as those in the Upper Incomes rises. There is a slight decrease in the number in the lower income group. The data does not yet show the effects of the never-ending Great Socialist Recession as many families have been worn down over the last four years.
Actually, if we look at this data a bit more closely over the period from about 1998 through 2009, the fraction of families in each income group has been about constant. I would maintain that the longer term trend for families to leave the Middle Income Group for the Upper Income Group has been successfully foiled by Big Government with its increasing impediments to economic freedoms over that period. If we want to restore the trend for Middle Income families to increasingly become Upper Income families, we need much less government interference in the private sector than we have seen over the last 15 years.
This chart is based on Census Bureau income data which is given in constant 2009 dollars. I would certainly question the idea that the lower bound of the Middle Income Group is $25,000 a year and would set that at least at $35,000, but that would not change the fact that the percentage of families in the Middle Incomes is dropping as those in the Upper Incomes rises. There is a slight decrease in the number in the lower income group. The data does not yet show the effects of the never-ending Great Socialist Recession as many families have been worn down over the last four years.
Actually, if we look at this data a bit more closely over the period from about 1998 through 2009, the fraction of families in each income group has been about constant. I would maintain that the longer term trend for families to leave the Middle Income Group for the Upper Income Group has been successfully foiled by Big Government with its increasing impediments to economic freedoms over that period. If we want to restore the trend for Middle Income families to increasingly become Upper Income families, we need much less government interference in the private sector than we have seen over the last 15 years.
09 July 2013
Bad Teachers are the Main Cause of Bad American Educations
The most important factor in student education is the quality of the teacher. Unfortunately, the average teacher in America is neither bright nor well-educated. This has long been my evaluation and that viewpoint is much confirmed in a report by Joy Pullman, Education Research Fellow at The Heartland Institute.
Her report notes:
Kate says she has some 10th grade students who have third grade reading skills and who cannot write a coherent sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Many more good, or even just decent, teachers are desperately needed. It is difficult to conceive how bad a teacher is who allows students to go on to the next grade when they have never learned to read or write. American schools are full to the brim with such teachers, while teachers such as Kate are exceedingly rare.
Her report notes:
- Students planning to major in education have below average SAT scores. Students with below average SAT scores are also below proficient on state grade by grade tests.
- The education major curriculum is about the easiest of all college curricula. Teaching majors need more college remedial work than humanities and social science majors. Yet, teaching majors are rewarded with the highest college grades.
- Teachers with content-specific majors or who have had an earlier career are better teachers than those who majored in education and took courses emphasizing progressive teaching methods and ideology.
- Teachers with teaching certificates are not any better than those without the certificates.
- Despite low achievement, teachers commonly get early retirement and pay and benefits that are 50% higher than what others of similar ability get in the marketplace.
Kate says she has some 10th grade students who have third grade reading skills and who cannot write a coherent sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Many more good, or even just decent, teachers are desperately needed. It is difficult to conceive how bad a teacher is who allows students to go on to the next grade when they have never learned to read or write. American schools are full to the brim with such teachers, while teachers such as Kate are exceedingly rare.
08 July 2013
A Nation of Sovereign Individuals with Unalienable Rights
Obama's 6 July radio address said that on 4 July 1776, a small band of men declared that we Americans were created equal and free to think and worship as we pleased. He said we were now a land of liberty and opportunity.
Obama did not say in what very limited manner we were equal because his agenda requires that to be vague. He did not note that while we are still free to think and worship as we please, we are very often not free to speak and write what we think or to act upon our beliefs, religious or not. He did not note that our liberties are constantly becoming fewer and that he wants them to become fewer. He did not say that he also wants to dictate the nature of our ever more limited opportunities and pick who will be given greater opportunity than others with manipulative government policies. He habitually defends unequal status before government as an honest effort to create equality among the People.
To understand how insulting this man's ideas and policies are to the sovereign rights of the individual, we really need a much better understanding of what our individual rights are than most people have. Indeed, even our founding fathers had an inadequate view of them, though I generally admire them for having understood the problem as well as they did in their time.
The Declaration of Independence, agreed upon on 2 July and published on 4 July 1776, wonderfully stated that "all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Yes, I do not agree that our rights come from our "Creator", but they do derive as Ayn Rand observed from our nature. At that time, almost everyone assumed the nature of man had been determined by man's Creator and therefore the rights that derived from man's nature were endowed by man's Creator. This reference to our Creator is a big deal with many who are religious today and because they attribute many of their beliefs to the will of a god they know nothing about, there are unfortunate consequences to this. Despite this error, there are many really great insights in this quoted statement of the Declaration of Independence.
The statement firmly places sovereignty in the hands of the People, not with government. It clearly takes individual rights to be of a very broad nature. Note that it even implies rights beyond those of each individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their happiness with the word "among." At the time, most Americans believed in the individual right to life, liberty, and property. The substitution of pursuit of happiness for property was clearly a way of broadening the claim of individual rights. Of course, the pursuit of happiness implied a freedom to acquire and keep property. But, it also would imply such things as a freedom to choose one's own friends and domestic partners, to choose what books one would read, to choose a religion or not to choose one, to enter into trade with others of one's choosing for the purposes of one's choosing, to maintain the privacy one desires, and many more actions leading to any of the many means to and forms of happiness that individuals might choose. This is a clear statement of a very broad concept of individual rights.
These rights are unalienable. The existence of a government does not diminish these rights. These rights are always sovereign in the individual. These rights are not given to the individual by the government. No, the government is only legitimate and able to claim a reason for its very existence to the extent that the government serves faithfully and well to protect these unalienable rights sovereign in the individual. The government is the servant of individual rights and when it fails to protect them as a matter of principle, the sovereign individuals will reform and reorganize government by their right so that it does follow principles to protect their individual sovereign rights.
These are powerful, well-stated principles that are manifestly ignored and/or misunderstood by the Progressive Elitists who dominate most academic viewpoints on the role of government today. This American principle of highly limited government with a legitimacy limited to its protection of individual rights held unalienably by sovereign individuals is unheard in academia, most media, and from most politicians. The People, long educated in government-run and dominated schools, no longer have a clear concept of their sovereignty, of their broad rights, and of their equally unalienable claim to these rights. Individuals are obviously unequal in most respects, but in the context of government, the most essential way in which they are equal is with respect to their equal and sovereign individual rights. To give some people favored status by law is to abrogate this one critical respect in which we are equal before the law. Those who most claim to believe in equality in the present political arena are most likely to destroy the most important sense in which we are equal. For all of his talk promoting equality, the Progressive Elitist today believes in neither equal rights nor even one-man, one-vote.
The sovereignty of the individual is re-affirmed in the Preamble of the Constitution. The statement of the highly limited powers of government issues from the sovereignty of the individuals who constitute that government. The government is formed only to serve their needs by protecting their liberties and their general welfare. This reference to general welfare is now often used in an out-of-context manner to support the welfare state and a massive redistribution of wealth. This could not be further from the intention of the time. No, then the general welfare implied government actions beneficial to everyone, not a bare majority or some special interest as it means today. Securing individual rights would provide peace and tranquility, justice, and the general welfare for everyone. No other government purpose can do this. Other government actions will most likely be unjust to many, require threats of violence upon many, and will harm the interests of many.
The 9th Amendment of the Bill of Rights makes a clear statement that the rights of the individual are broad and are indeed unalienable. They are not to be denied or disparaged by the government. It is no small infraction of the principle of legitimate government that our government has long ignored this amendment and overtly claimed it to be meaningless. Indeed, the Supreme Court has actually claimed that the government is sovereign, which it most manifestly is not. Were this the case, then there would be no means by which a legitimate government could be formed and judged. There would be no possible basis for overthrowing it when it became tyrannical and inimical to the rights of the individual. Such a government would be inconsistent with both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Indeed, a sovereign government, rather than a government serving to protect the rights of sovereign individuals, is inconceivable in a human-centered morality in which individuals think and act as individuals for the purpose of preserving their lives, flourishing in liberty, and pursuing their own happiness.
This enlightenment and early American view of sovereign individual rights and very limited government legitimately protecting individual rights is very much at odds with the loose and hoary notions of government and rights held by Obama, the Progressive Elitists, and other advocates of big government today. They assume that it is the purpose of government to grant individuals such rights as it may choose to give them. They assume that government is supposed to hurt the interests of many for the purpose of helping some who are incompetent in living their lives. They believe it is just and moral to propagate innumerable laws and regulations limiting our individual freedoms, even as each mandate is enforced by the threat of violence should anyone stand upon their individual rights. No peace and tranquility are possible as faction upon faction, special interest upon special interest, and even race upon race, battle for control of the brutal power of government. It is clear that by the criteria of our own Declaration of Independence, our government today is illegitimate.
The rational American does not celebrate the federal government on the 4th of July. He celebrates the American Principle set forth by the Declaration of Independence and implemented in the Constitution by the mandate of American individuals. The American Principle states that the individual is sovereign and each individual has equal and broad rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It states that the only legitimate purpose of government is the protection of the unalienable rights of the individual. Due to this very limited function, government has and can claim but few powers. The sovereign individual retains his sovereignty with respect to the freedom to exercise his rights, while government is entirely his servant devoted to the sole task of protecting the rights of each and every individual American. By adherence to this dedicated purpose, good government harms no one and never initiates the use of force against anyone.
Obama did not say in what very limited manner we were equal because his agenda requires that to be vague. He did not note that while we are still free to think and worship as we please, we are very often not free to speak and write what we think or to act upon our beliefs, religious or not. He did not note that our liberties are constantly becoming fewer and that he wants them to become fewer. He did not say that he also wants to dictate the nature of our ever more limited opportunities and pick who will be given greater opportunity than others with manipulative government policies. He habitually defends unequal status before government as an honest effort to create equality among the People.
To understand how insulting this man's ideas and policies are to the sovereign rights of the individual, we really need a much better understanding of what our individual rights are than most people have. Indeed, even our founding fathers had an inadequate view of them, though I generally admire them for having understood the problem as well as they did in their time.
The Declaration of Independence, agreed upon on 2 July and published on 4 July 1776, wonderfully stated that "all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Yes, I do not agree that our rights come from our "Creator", but they do derive as Ayn Rand observed from our nature. At that time, almost everyone assumed the nature of man had been determined by man's Creator and therefore the rights that derived from man's nature were endowed by man's Creator. This reference to our Creator is a big deal with many who are religious today and because they attribute many of their beliefs to the will of a god they know nothing about, there are unfortunate consequences to this. Despite this error, there are many really great insights in this quoted statement of the Declaration of Independence.
The statement firmly places sovereignty in the hands of the People, not with government. It clearly takes individual rights to be of a very broad nature. Note that it even implies rights beyond those of each individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their happiness with the word "among." At the time, most Americans believed in the individual right to life, liberty, and property. The substitution of pursuit of happiness for property was clearly a way of broadening the claim of individual rights. Of course, the pursuit of happiness implied a freedom to acquire and keep property. But, it also would imply such things as a freedom to choose one's own friends and domestic partners, to choose what books one would read, to choose a religion or not to choose one, to enter into trade with others of one's choosing for the purposes of one's choosing, to maintain the privacy one desires, and many more actions leading to any of the many means to and forms of happiness that individuals might choose. This is a clear statement of a very broad concept of individual rights.
These rights are unalienable. The existence of a government does not diminish these rights. These rights are always sovereign in the individual. These rights are not given to the individual by the government. No, the government is only legitimate and able to claim a reason for its very existence to the extent that the government serves faithfully and well to protect these unalienable rights sovereign in the individual. The government is the servant of individual rights and when it fails to protect them as a matter of principle, the sovereign individuals will reform and reorganize government by their right so that it does follow principles to protect their individual sovereign rights.
These are powerful, well-stated principles that are manifestly ignored and/or misunderstood by the Progressive Elitists who dominate most academic viewpoints on the role of government today. This American principle of highly limited government with a legitimacy limited to its protection of individual rights held unalienably by sovereign individuals is unheard in academia, most media, and from most politicians. The People, long educated in government-run and dominated schools, no longer have a clear concept of their sovereignty, of their broad rights, and of their equally unalienable claim to these rights. Individuals are obviously unequal in most respects, but in the context of government, the most essential way in which they are equal is with respect to their equal and sovereign individual rights. To give some people favored status by law is to abrogate this one critical respect in which we are equal before the law. Those who most claim to believe in equality in the present political arena are most likely to destroy the most important sense in which we are equal. For all of his talk promoting equality, the Progressive Elitist today believes in neither equal rights nor even one-man, one-vote.
The sovereignty of the individual is re-affirmed in the Preamble of the Constitution. The statement of the highly limited powers of government issues from the sovereignty of the individuals who constitute that government. The government is formed only to serve their needs by protecting their liberties and their general welfare. This reference to general welfare is now often used in an out-of-context manner to support the welfare state and a massive redistribution of wealth. This could not be further from the intention of the time. No, then the general welfare implied government actions beneficial to everyone, not a bare majority or some special interest as it means today. Securing individual rights would provide peace and tranquility, justice, and the general welfare for everyone. No other government purpose can do this. Other government actions will most likely be unjust to many, require threats of violence upon many, and will harm the interests of many.
The 9th Amendment of the Bill of Rights makes a clear statement that the rights of the individual are broad and are indeed unalienable. They are not to be denied or disparaged by the government. It is no small infraction of the principle of legitimate government that our government has long ignored this amendment and overtly claimed it to be meaningless. Indeed, the Supreme Court has actually claimed that the government is sovereign, which it most manifestly is not. Were this the case, then there would be no means by which a legitimate government could be formed and judged. There would be no possible basis for overthrowing it when it became tyrannical and inimical to the rights of the individual. Such a government would be inconsistent with both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Indeed, a sovereign government, rather than a government serving to protect the rights of sovereign individuals, is inconceivable in a human-centered morality in which individuals think and act as individuals for the purpose of preserving their lives, flourishing in liberty, and pursuing their own happiness.
This enlightenment and early American view of sovereign individual rights and very limited government legitimately protecting individual rights is very much at odds with the loose and hoary notions of government and rights held by Obama, the Progressive Elitists, and other advocates of big government today. They assume that it is the purpose of government to grant individuals such rights as it may choose to give them. They assume that government is supposed to hurt the interests of many for the purpose of helping some who are incompetent in living their lives. They believe it is just and moral to propagate innumerable laws and regulations limiting our individual freedoms, even as each mandate is enforced by the threat of violence should anyone stand upon their individual rights. No peace and tranquility are possible as faction upon faction, special interest upon special interest, and even race upon race, battle for control of the brutal power of government. It is clear that by the criteria of our own Declaration of Independence, our government today is illegitimate.
The rational American does not celebrate the federal government on the 4th of July. He celebrates the American Principle set forth by the Declaration of Independence and implemented in the Constitution by the mandate of American individuals. The American Principle states that the individual is sovereign and each individual has equal and broad rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It states that the only legitimate purpose of government is the protection of the unalienable rights of the individual. Due to this very limited function, government has and can claim but few powers. The sovereign individual retains his sovereignty with respect to the freedom to exercise his rights, while government is entirely his servant devoted to the sole task of protecting the rights of each and every individual American. By adherence to this dedicated purpose, good government harms no one and never initiates the use of force against anyone.
United Nations Does Not Take Global Warming Seriously
The United Nations IPCC has issued four reports claiming that mankind faces a catastrophe due to man-made global warming from CO2 emissions. Five years ago, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary General, issued a mandate to U. N. organizations to develop plans to reduce their carbon footprints. To date, only 10 of the 49 U.N. organizations, employing 220,000 people, have management-approved carbon reduction plans in-place. As Donna Laframboise points out, this is proof the United Nations does not take the UN IPCC man-made global warming catastrophe claim seriously.
Unfortunately, the UN IPCC Report 4 is nonetheless the authority cited by the USA EPA as the justification for declaring CO2 a pollutant subject to the anti-air pollution regulations it issues. The EPA is acting without the approval of Congress on this matter, so it is also putting the UN ahead of our own elected representatives. How odd it is that the UN is enthusiastic about the power it will acquire as the monitoring organization for energy use, but not equally enthusiastic about reducing its own CO2 emissions. Or is it odd? It would be odd only if the UN were nominally a rational organization which was actually concerned with acting morally.
Unfortunately, the UN IPCC Report 4 is nonetheless the authority cited by the USA EPA as the justification for declaring CO2 a pollutant subject to the anti-air pollution regulations it issues. The EPA is acting without the approval of Congress on this matter, so it is also putting the UN ahead of our own elected representatives. How odd it is that the UN is enthusiastic about the power it will acquire as the monitoring organization for energy use, but not equally enthusiastic about reducing its own CO2 emissions. Or is it odd? It would be odd only if the UN were nominally a rational organization which was actually concerned with acting morally.
07 July 2013
Taking the Fifth is Always Wise Policy, Especially Under Big Government
A law Professor, James Duane of the Regent Law School of Virginia Beach, VA, offers a very interesting and convincing argument for why anyone questioned by the police should always take the 5th. This is a really entertaining and enlightening presentation.
Among other points, he notes that the complexity of the law is itself a reason for not talking to the police or for that matter to IRS agents. The federal government has no idea how many federal criminal laws there are. What is more, one might reveal that one has violated some obscure federal agency regulation or interpretation of a law or that one is even guilty because you have violated a law of another nation to which you have never been. Under big government, no one is innocent.
Also, cooperation with the police will not help you. A police officer cannot testify that you helped them or that what you said exonerated you, since that is taken as mere hearsay and is not permissible evidence. Talking to government agents can only hurt you.
Any mistake or seemingly irrelevant little lie will hurt you. Even the truth stated by an innocent man can hurt him. Then again, the police may mis-remember what you said and that can be used against you. Or a wrong witness contradicting something you said may hurt your chances of avoiding conviction.
This is a seriously important presentation, which also indicates the great wisdom of our Bill of Rights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
H/t Alexander Strugatsky.
Among other points, he notes that the complexity of the law is itself a reason for not talking to the police or for that matter to IRS agents. The federal government has no idea how many federal criminal laws there are. What is more, one might reveal that one has violated some obscure federal agency regulation or interpretation of a law or that one is even guilty because you have violated a law of another nation to which you have never been. Under big government, no one is innocent.
Also, cooperation with the police will not help you. A police officer cannot testify that you helped them or that what you said exonerated you, since that is taken as mere hearsay and is not permissible evidence. Talking to government agents can only hurt you.
Any mistake or seemingly irrelevant little lie will hurt you. Even the truth stated by an innocent man can hurt him. Then again, the police may mis-remember what you said and that can be used against you. Or a wrong witness contradicting something you said may hurt your chances of avoiding conviction.
This is a seriously important presentation, which also indicates the great wisdom of our Bill of Rights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
H/t Alexander Strugatsky.
Additional Child Tax Credit for Tax Refunds for Children in Mexico
An Indiana TV station has a most interesting story on the foolish behavior of the federal government and the IRS in particular. It has revealed that illegal aliens are filing federal tax returns claiming children as dependents living in the U.S., who are actually in Mexico. According to tax returns, in one trailer in southern Indiana there are supposed to be four illegal male aliens living there with 20 children, most of them claimed to be nieces and nephews. The only child actually living there, is one daughter of the only illegal alien living there. Numerous such IRS falsified filings are resulting in tax refunds of $12,000 or more. The annual cost to the taxpayer is more than $4 billion and the IRS is doing nothing about it. The IRS agents are clearly too busy trying to keep non-Progressive Elitist groups from tax-exempt status and trying to take over our medical records and control of our health insurance to take possession of our very bodies.