Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Jeopardy Category -- State Of Texas Employees










==============================


"The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty." -- Baruch Spinoza

"That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
-- John Stuart Mill

"Liberty and good government do not exclude each other;
and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." -- Lord Acton
 

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca


========================

 " What is coach sports? "


 Correct !


http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/




==================


original post here

Monday, June 28, 2010

Will Someone Please Create A 'Downfall' Parody About Penn Jillette

If you can get through one of the most irritating and politically clueless intros you'll read all month, this Vanity Fair interview with the reliably interesting political commentator Penn Jillette  (with the eyeball-catching headline of "Penn Jillette Is Willing to Be a Guest on Adolf Hitler's Talk Show") is well worth a read.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/06/21/penn-jillette-on-bush-obama-th



Do you think Bullshit is fair and balanced?
We're very, very fair and very, very biased. (Laughs.) Which is what I want from all media, by the way. I want the anchor on the nightly news to come on and say, "I hate President Obama… and here's the news." All this whimpering in the press about how we shouldn't have news that's partial and subjective, it misses the point completely. It was (newspaper magnate William Randolph) Hearst that invented the idea that journalism should be in the middle. It was never like that before. It was the Ohio Democrat and the Minnesota Republican. They said it right in their titles. And then Hearst decided he could sell twice as many papers if he pretended that they didn't have a position. And of course that's always a lie.


==========================

R.I.P. -    Pamela (Mrs. Audie) Murphy

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14885262






HT: David Smith

====================

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." -- Frederick Douglass

"Liberty, according to m metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute
that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable
of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of
it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and
choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of
morality, neither morally good nor morally evil." -- John Adams


"Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew." -- Kenneth W. Royce

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/


============================

What Did The Father Of The Constitution Not Understand About The Constitution?

George Will has a list of questions for Elena Kagan.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=538572


                                     



=======================================



=====================================

Friday, June 25, 2010

Bastiat Quote From "The Law"

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race?" 

--Frederic Bastiat 

The Law







==================================

http://www.rd.com/clean-jokes-and-laughs/11-funny-church-signs/article177226.html#slide

================================

Forbes magazine would list him as the seventh-richest man in the world in 1989.

Pablo was establishing a pattern of dealing with the authorities that would become his trademark.  It soon became known simply as plata o plomo.  One either accepted Pablo's plata (silver) or his plomo (lead).

He could not fathom Lara's behavior because he did not believe that anyone acted out of principle.

If Pablo was trying to craft some manifesto to relate his own struggle to that of Marxist heroes Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, he failed -- not because he lacked intelligence but because he lacked convictions.  His only cause, ultimately, was himself.

Beginning that summer, U.S. Army troops joined DEA agents and Bolivian police in raiding fifteen cocaine-processing labs in that country.

Cocaine was not Colombia's problem; it was the norteamericanos' problem.  And even if they did away with El Doctor, as the United States insisted, it was not going to curb the cocaine industry.

Killing Pablo would not end cocaine exports to the United States or even slow them down--everybody knew that....

Killing Pablo had not ended the cocaine industry; it had merely handed it off to new leaders.....

All in all, there was more cocaine available for sale in the United States at cheaper prices that year than ever before in history.  Indeed, throughout the remainder of the decade, cocaine prices in the United States gradually declined.  The bottom line was that regardless of the billions spent in the war on drugs, there was more than enough cocaine for everybody in America who wanted to buy it.



Buy Killing Pablo at Amazon.com


=========================

"Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians." -- Alexander Hope, from the novel "Hope" by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

purchase "Hope" at Amazon.com


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Jesus Explains Libertarianism

         Jesus explains libertarianism with three two one Bible verses









Do not judge

Matthew 7:1-5 (New International Version)

Jesus speaking

 1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
 3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.






Greatest Commandment

Matthew 22:39 (New International Version)


39... 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 


Golden Rule

Matthew 7:12 (New International Version)

12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you...







http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm

LAMAR STREET BLUES

                LAMAR STREET BLUES

Episode 129:174 in which a new Republican Unit is formed.



0700 : Dallas Cop HQ : Shift Briefing (npi)








 Briefing Sarge aka Tough Cop :  "Okay, listen up Dallas Cops.  We've got some new rules handed down from the Grand Old Party..... so I'm gonna need some volunteers.  Any Republicans show up for work today ??"






Briefing Sarge aka Tough Cop : "Excellent, way to show that team spirit, all for one, one for all, what's mine is yours, what was yours is now mine.  Here's the skinny.  All You Republicans are now on a special tactical, maneuverable, strategic, spontaneous, calculatin', double-secret-probation unit -

                       SODOMY SQUAD

The Chief, the Governor, the Mayor and the City of Dallas are counting on you.
Get out there and arrest one of those law-breakin', criminal, sodomizers."

 - Cheers from the Republican Chorus -   "Yeah"
                                                                  "Yippee"
                                                                 "Yeehaw"
                                                        "Gonna get me a homo."
                                                         "We need the revenue."


           
              

Sergeantski Stan Jablonski:     "Let's do it to them before they do it to us."

Briefing Sarge aka Tough Cop :  "This is part of the 2010 Texas Republican Platform so everyone's got to do their part.

Remember to concentrate on criminals - Don't get distracted by big boobs....










or athletic legs.  Always be AWARE.  These people can be dangerous.




Hey, let's be careful out there. "




http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2009/may/15/dallas-police-lgbt-liaison-may-go-full-time/?refscroll=480




==

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Doesn't It Ever Wake You In The Middle Of The Night?


                 Doesn't it ever wake you in the middle
                 of the night?  The feeling that some
                 day, some day very soon, they will
                 pass that foolish law - or one just
                 like it - and they will come for you
                 and your children?  





X-Men Script


"Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians."

-- Alexander Hope, from the novel "Hope" by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

My Life In Court by Louis Nizer

My Life In Court by Louis Nizer



Even before the United States entered the war, many American fliers had volunteered to fight in the English sky, which they considered a mere extension of the American sky.

War, like age or disease, brings consciousness of imminent death So we grasp for living values.  That is why so many marriages are contracted during war, at the most unpropitious time when separation is certain.

The courts do not exist to straighten out the knotted affairs of every eccentric who comes along.

He had been denied United States citizenship "on the ground that the applicant was not attached to the principles of the Constitution."

His life had been a series of defeats, but defeat is education. 

The greater danger is that the Judge will throw out the case because of insufficient evidence without even submitting it to the jury.

The principle by which I have guided my legal work is that law is truth in action.  It is man's highest achievement, because it is the only weapon he has fashioned whose force rests solely on the sanctity of reason.  The more it is codified, the more it is in danger of petrifying.  Its primary function, to do justice,  becomes circumscribed by rules and precedents, which all too often interfere with its attainment,  In order to give stability to law, our legislatures enact statutes to forewarn us, and our courts issue judicial opinions to guide us, but these become immense catalogues that can obstruct the view of simple justice.




Rum And Coca-Cola 



If you ever go down Trinidad
They make you feel so very glad
Calypso sing and make up rhyme
Guarantee you one real good fine time

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Oh, beat it man, beat it

Since the Yankee come to Trinidad
They got the young girls all goin' mad
Young girls say they treat 'em nice
Make Trinidad like paradise

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Oh, you vex me, you vex me

From Chicachicaree to Mona's Isle
Native girls all dance and smile
Help soldier celebrate his leave
Make every day like New Year's Eve

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

It's a fact, man, it's a fact

In old Trinidad, I also fear
The situation is mighty queer
Like the Yankee girl, the native swoon
When she hear der Bingo croon

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Out on Manzanella Beach
G.I. romance with native peach
All night long, make tropic love
Next day, sit in hot sun and cool off

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

It's a fact, man, it's a fact

Rum and Coca-Cola
Rum and Coca-Cola
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Only Hope We Have Is The Internet - We Must Strive To Keep It Free

In Africa a drought can wipe out hundreds of thousands of lives thanks to that continent's absence of capitalism and resultant lack of industrial energy. Millions die annually for lack of electricity and from respiratory illness from burning wood and animal dung for energy. What these people need is not a static average global temperature; they (and we) need capitalism and cheap energy--including the life-giving elixir that is oil.

Three Myths About Oil

by Alex Epstein
======================

Keep Your Filthy Hands Off The Internet
by L. Neil Smith


==================================



elbow room

===============================

Thursday, June 17, 2010

We Live Two Realities: One The Government Imposes On Us, The Other We Adopt In Our Real Lives



http://mises.org/daily/4512

What struck me about this man's phrase was how it presumed that he and I were among the rebels against the prevailing ethos — that together we would reject the government's edicts and create our own norms and reality. This is a wonderful model for living a full life. This book is about seeing that just because government mandates certain things and forbids others does not mean that we must follow or even tolerate the official roadmap for our lives.












===============================================

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

52 Thousand Employees -- 7 Billion Customers

                                            since 1837




                                                       52 thousand employees
                   7 BILLION CUSTOMERS






==================


"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." -- Pledge of Allegiance
Source: Originally written by Rev Francis Bellamy in 1892, the Pledge has undergone several changes. The last change added 'under God' unanimously passed by Congress in 1954.



"Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it... Rise for the flag salute." -- Frank Zappa (1940-1993), Musician



"No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents."
-- Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) Abolitionist author


======================

Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it." -- Lord Bolingbroke


"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born... is to live the life of a child for ever." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator












"We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most." -- Plato (429-347 BC) Source: Statesman 302a





=============================




Friday, June 11, 2010

Milton Friedman Explains - "USA Is Not A Democracy"




====================================

"By nature men are pretty much alike; it is learning and practice that set them apart." -- Confucius [Kung Fu-tse] (551-479 B.C.)




=========================================

"He was an old lion, prepared from birth to lose his life rather than to leave it."

 West With The Night

"You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself."





Born in England in 1902, Markham grew up in East Africa. She worked as a trainer and breeder of racehorses and as a bush pilot. In 1936 she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Markham died in 1986.







===================================

Why the U.S. should be supporting a regime that so far this year has fired 370 lethal rockets into Israel, that still refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and that has made a cottage industry of teaching children to hate is beyond us.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/537029/201006101900/Pork-For-Hamas.aspx

We should not be giving federal aid to Israel, Fatah, Hamas, PLO, or any country.


===============================




Our teacher asked us what our favorite animal was, and I said, "Fried chicken."

She said I wasn't funny, but she couldn't have been right, everyone else in the class laughed.

My parents told me to always be truthful and honest, and I am. Fried chicken is my favorite animal. I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA. He said they love animals very much. I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef.

Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal's office. I told him what happened, and he laughed too. Then he told me not to do it again.

The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was. I told her it was chicken. She asked me why, just like she'd asked the other children. So I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken. She sent me back to the principal's office again. He laughed, and told me not to do it again.

I don't understand. My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn't like it when I am. Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most.

I told her, "Colonel Sanders".  

Guess where I am now... 





==



Alton Brown talks Turkey here



================================

"The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom." -- Clarence S. Darrow (1857-1938)



"We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people; we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other." -- Lewis Thomas


"We are all full of weakness and errors, let us mutually pardon each other our follies. It is the first law of nature." -- Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

 




Thursday, June 10, 2010

John Jay Myers Addresses The Libertarian National Convention




One day, a Business Management professor walked into his class with a bucket.

"Do you know how to fill the bucket?" he asked his students.

Some rolled their eyes. Others thought, "What a stupid question." A few leaned forward.

The professor put six large stones into the bucket. They came up to the top edge.

"Is the bucket full?" asked the professor.

"Of course," said several students.

"Are you sure?"

The professor took out a bag of gravel and emptied it into the bucket until the gravel spilled over.

"Is the bucket full now?" he asked.

The class seemed unsure.

The professor shook the bucket to let the stones and gravel settle, took out a bag of sand and poured it in between the gravel and stones.

"Is the bucket full now?"

"No," shout the students.

The professor took out a pitcher of water and poured it into the bucket until it overflowed.

"What have you learned from this demonstration?" he asked.

"That we can always find room for more in our workdays," said one student.

"Not to be so quick to judge what is or is not possible," answered another.

"To be cautious when someone asks us an obvious question," said a third.

"Good answers," said the professor. "But here's the big lesson: unless you put in the Big Stones first, you'll never be able to put them in later."

A simple and important lesson for libertarian communicators.

Do you know how to fill the bucket in your political conversations?

Do you start with the Big Stones: Big Government vs. small government? Or do you let the other person fill the conversation with gravel and sand -- issues that do not shrink government or expand liberty?

Do you focus the conversation on Big Stones: government spending, size, and power? Or do you let current events drive the discussion into sand and water political trivia?

Do you bring the discussion back to Big Stones: the costly and destructive nature of Big Government programs? Or do you let the other person fill the bucket with the gravel, sand, and water of incompetence, corruption or why the other guys are even worse?

You fill the bucket every day. Every conversation.

When you fill the bucket, what will you start with? What will you concentrate on? Big Stones -- or gravel, sand, or water?

The vital -- or the less important, the unimportant, or the downright trivial?

Knowing how to fill the bucket is important.

But doing it is the Biggest Stone.



http://www.theadvocates.org/blog/37



original post here

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Obama Pays Off Abbas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/middleeast/10prexy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss





3.3    International Affairs
American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by
political or revolutionary groups.

In a libertarian country, you would keep this money in your pocket.




=================================


"Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions,has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."-- Henry Brooks Adams(1838-1918) Pulitzer prize-winning historian (1919), great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, and son of US Secretary of State, Charles Adams
Source: The Education of Henry Adams, ch. 1 (1907)
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Henry.Brooks.Adams.Quote.8B57


"None are more hopelessly enslaved those who falsely believe they are free."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749-1832)
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Johann.Wolfgang.von.Goethe.Quote.282D


"How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even therefrom that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better." -- Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Mark.Twain.Quote.449B

====================================

John Jay Myers Breaks Libertarian Fundraising Record in the 32nd Congressional District


John Jay Myers for Congress                                   
4440 Lawnview Ave.
Dallas, TX 75227
Contact: John Jay Myers
214-824-4150
john@johnjaymyers.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 9, 2010

John Jay Myers Breaks Libertarian Fundraising Record in the 32nd Congressional District

Dallas, TX - John Jay Myers, a small business owner and Libertarian candidate for the 32nd U.S. Congressional district of Texas, has reached the $5000 FEC reporting threshold for congressional candidates. This makes John Jay Myers the first Libertarian candidate to do so in the 32nd district. Mr. Myers expressed his gratitude to contributors:

“I am inspired to see so many people stand up for less government, and I am glad that they look to me as a spokesman for it. Thank you to everyone who has donated or volunteered. Your dedication will help to prove that Americans are seeing beyond left versus right, and more at right versus wrong. Despite the odds, it is important that our voices are heard, and believe me, we will be heard.”

To his family, Myers added, “I love you all dearly, and I am very thankful for your support.”

John Jay Myers faces a 14-year incumbent whose chance to prove himself as a fiscally responsible proponent of free markets has come and gone. Ballooning national debt, a tumultuous economy, and costly undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have all happened on Sessions’ watch. On his opponent, John Jay Myers stated:

“Government bailouts destroy free markets, government pork drains our economy, government wars risk our safety, and government security programs threaten our freedoms. Clearly, we can no longer afford the illusion that our current representative is a small government conservative.”

The John Jay Myers for Congress campaign has already produced flyers, t-shirts, banners, a website, and online videos, and Mr. Myers has attended numerous events including the Mardi Gras parade, the Castle Hills Tea Party, the NORML march, and the first National Government Sucks Day.

Anyone wishing to contact John Jay Myers, learn more about the campaign, or donate, can visit www.johnjaymyers.com for more information.




============================

Photo courtesy Retake Congress.com





Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Obama/Bush Quadrant



HT: Irish Liberty Forum

aka Irish Liberty Forum

The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman

The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman

The central idea of libertarianism is that people should be permitted to run their own lives as they wish.

Those who wished to live communally could set up their own communes.  But nobody would have a right to force his way of life upon his neighbor.

...the institutions of private property are the machinery of freedom...

... private property is the central institution of a free society.

The desire of several people to use the same resources for different ends is the essential problem that makes property institutions necessary.  The simplest way to resolve such a conflict is physical force.  If I can beat you up,  I get to use the car. This method is very expensive.... The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.

The function of politics is to reduce the diversity of individual ends to a set of "common ends".

Under any institutions, there are essentially only three ways that I can get another person to help me achieve my ends: love, trade, and force.

It was only when most workers were already down to a ten-hour day that it became politically possible to legislate one.

How does the AMA control the number of doctors ?  Refusing to license doctors after they are trained would create a great deal of hostility among those rejected; that would be politically expensive. Instead, it relies mainly on the medical schools.

The word "need" should be eliminated from the vocabulary of public discourse.  It is inextricably bound up withe a dangerous oversimplification of reality -- the idea that there exist certain values infinitely more important than all others, things I need, rather than merely want, and that these "needs" can be determined objectively.

There is a simple solution.  Governments should subsidize schooling instead of schools.

Departments in a university that reaches corporate decisions in important matters will tend to become groups of true believers, closed to all who do not share the proper orthodoxy.  They so forfeit one of the principal tools in the pursuit of truth -- intellectual conflict.

Local politicians might be skeptical of the value of a mass transit system whose construction failed to siphon billions of dollars through their hands.

This is the cost, not of addiction, but of laws prohibiting narcotics.  Addicts commit virtually no crimes while actually high on narcotics; they have neither the will nor, usually, the ability.  They steal to pay for the next fix.  If legal, narcotics would cost a small fraction of their present price, and few addicts would have to engage in large-scale crime to pay the costs, just as few alcoholics do.

Nobody, except a few Brahmins in Delhi and two or three Trotskyites in New York, still believes that the earthly paradise can be achieved by nationalizing General Motors and turning the corner grocery store over to the Mayor's office.

Compulsory puritanism -- crimes without victims.

In spite of popular myths about capitalism oppressing the poor, the poor are worse off in those things provided by the government, such as schooling, police protection and justice.  There are more good cars in the ghetto than good schools.  Putting protection on the market would mean better protection for the poor, not worse.

Most varieties of socialism implicitly assume unanimous agreement on goals.

I do not like paying taxes, but I would rather pay them to Washington than to Moscow -- the rates are lower.








http://irishliberty.wordpress.com/

Dallas City Council Performs Miracle - Trinity River Turns Blue

“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.”



Sorry folks, looks like the kayaking park has hit a snag.



                                            This is the Dallas City Council's Dream



                                                           
                                                Below is the reality




http://www.trinityra.org/BasinPlan/CRP/tra_pictures.html






=====================================

(Jerry, Elaine and George enter the Chinese restaurant)

Elaine: No, they've just got to get more cops on the force, it's as simple as
that.

George: Cops. I don't even care about cops. I wanna see more garbage men. It's
much more important. All I wanna see are garbage trucks, garbage cans and
garbage men. You're never gonna stop crime, we should at least be clean.

Jerry: I tell you what they should do, they should combine the two jobs, make
it one job, 'cop\garbage man'. I always see cops walking around with nothing to
do. Grab a broom! Start sweeping. You sweep sweep sweep... catch a criminal, get
right back to sweeping.

Elaine: You should run for mayor.

Jerry: Ehh, nobody listens.



========================= 

In a free society, standards of public morality can be measured only by whether physical coercion -- violence against persons or property -- occurs. There is no right not to be offended by words, actions or symbols. - Richard E. Sincere, Jr.


=====================

A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. -- Alexis de Tocqueville


==========================