Friday, July 30, 2010

Hamilton's Curse

It is no surprise that neoconservatives, who have never opposed big government in the way traditional conservatives have, would join the forces of Hamiltonian nationalists.

"We must have a government of more power," Hamilton wrote to George Washington in August 1780.

Hamilton set out to rewrite the history of the American founding by arguing that the citizens of the states had never been sovereign.

George Washington had condemned the notion of a "living constitution" in his Farewell Address.

Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today


American taxpayers have never been presented with itemized federal tax bills.



In the eighteenth century the word congress meant an assembly of sovereign countries.

Private banks were already performing that and all other banking functions that Hamilton wanted his government-run (and -subsidized) bank to perform.

The Panic of 1819 was the first boon-and-bust cycle of the economy caused by government monetary policy.

Between 1937 and 1995, not a single federal law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The economic foolishness of such an idea lies in the fact that in a market economy the only legitimate judges of excellence are consumers, not politicians.

Protectionists know this; that's why they invariably advocate protectionism for the tings that they sell but free trade for the things that they buy, such as parts and materials that they use to manufacture their own products.

Under the Articles of Confederation the central government had no taxing powers at all; revenues were raised by the sovereign states.

Alexander Hamilton ended up beating out his rival Thomas Jefferson in the effort to shape the American government and its influence in citizen's lives.  Because Hamilton won, the American people have lost.


Review by David Gordon 
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"Monetary policy today is guided by little more than government fiat -- by the calculations, often mistaken economic theories, and whims of central bankers or, even worse, politicians. Under such a regime, inflation of three or four percent annually has come to be viewed as a stellar monetary performance. However, under a more sound monetary system -- i.e., a gold standard -- such increases in the general price level would be seen as wildly inflationary." -- Raymond J. Keating

"It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we
ought to challenge that concept." -- Ron Paul

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Be assured that if this new provision [the 14th Amendment] be engrafted in the Constitution, it will, in time, change the entire structure and texture of our government,
and sweep away all the guarantees of safety devised and provided by our patriotic Sires of the Revolution." -- Orville Browning

 Liberty Quotes

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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Shoot First, Don't Answer Questions Later




Vin Suprynowicz writes about Las Vegas police who shoot first, don't answer questions later.



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Any candidate for public office who desires to disarm you, who would make it difficult for you to defend yourself against the thuggery which evolves from commodity rationing is demonstrating not only sociological and economic ignorance but also a contempt for human life, demonstrating disqualification for any position of authority. -- Tim Lebsack

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An 18-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up and appeared before Allah. 
 
"Oh, Allah, Praised be your holy name, I did as your earthly clerics demanded but I have a request.   I spent my time in a terrorist training camp
doing as I was told, never receiving the privileges of the leader so I've never had sex with a woman, only goats.   So, instead of 72 sexually inexperienced virgins, can I have 72 sluts ?” 
 
Allah replied, "Actually, the 72 virgins are here because thugs like you murdered them before they could experience the pleasures of sex. You are here to service them.  Since they’re virgins, they’re quite sexually ravenous; and, frankly, you’ll be on constant, exhausting duty." 

 
The murderer responded, "Well, I guess I can live with that. How hard can it be to keep 72 women satisfied for all eternity?" 

 
Allah replied, "Who said they’re women ?


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"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain.[Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)


"You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive." -- William Allen White

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"The government was set to protect man from criminals and the Constitution was written to protect man from government." - Ayn Rand

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Hey Kids, Don't Forget To Register For The Draft

I'm registered
You can get ready for your leader's next war here.



Selective Service Record Search Results

Search Criteria
Last Name: Lebsack
Social Security Number: *** - ** - 1595
Date of Birth: 02/25/1962

Matched Record
Selective Service Number:
62-0727181-5
Date of Registration
2/3/1981
To obtain written proof of Selective Service registration CLICK HERE and follow the instructions on our "Registration Information" page.



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"Glad that's over with. Now we don't need the marketing department."



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From: Michelle Obama

To: Useful Idiot 

Every year, our family tries to come up with a fun way to make sure the puppet has a happy birthday.

And this August 4th, when he turns 49, I have something new in mind.

 

This year brought a lot of surprises -- none good, all bad.

Socialists like you, morons lacking any individuality, have helped him make the best of it.  Thanks so much,


Michelle Obama



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You can't go on feeling sad without first consenting to stand in the ashes of some past event and then rubbing the memory of it all over yourself. -- Guy Finley

Monday, July 26, 2010

Think A Second Time

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. ...This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. -- Frederick Douglass

"No legal tender law is ever needed to make men take good money; its only use is to make them take bad money." -- Stephen T. Byington

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


"About all a Federal Reserve note can legally do is wipe out one debt and replace it with itself another debt, a note that promises nothing. If anything's been paid, the payment occurs only in the minds of the parties..." -- Tupper Saucy

"One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle class families of financial reserves & seems to lend support to campaigns for socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized food, socialized every thing. The personal income tax has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State & more avid for state hand-outs. It has shifted the balance in America from an individual-centered to a State-centered economic & social system."
-- W. H. Chamberlin

"How bad do things have to get before you do something? Do they have to take away all your property? Do they have to license every activity that you want to engage in? Do they have to start throwing you on cattle cars before you say “now wait a minute, I don’t think this is a good idea.” How long is it going to be before you finally resist and say “No, I will not comply. Period!” Ask yourself now because sooner or later you are going to come to that line, and when they cross it, you’re going to say well now cross this line; ok now cross that line; ok now cross this line. Pretty soon you’re in a corner. Sooner or later you’ve got to stand your ground whether anybody else does or not. That is what liberty is all about."
-- Michael Badnarik



"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem."
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"Merely to breathe freely does not mean to live.
[Ger., Frei athmen macht das Leben nicht allein.]" -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


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

A society can survive the collapse of its economy, but not of its citizens' morality.

In matters of public policy, let's debate results, not motives.



Our society is obsessed with personal rights, but it will survive only if we each adopt personal obligations.






All the strippers in America do less harm than one bad politician.


Our message, given in love, to our children must be: "Your right actions are more important than your feelings.  Even if you're upset, you cannot hurt other people."


My answer to you is that we can't have everything we want when there is a price to be paid by others.

I have come to understand that part of the environmentalist movement is a protest against the Judeo-Christian elevation of the human species above other species.


Every major prediction of Karl Marx has failed to materialize.


The American university as it replaced the search for truth with the pursuit of an ideological agenda.


Good motives cause at least as much evil as bad ones.


A great deal of evil emanates not from selfish or cruel motives, but from good motives.


When all other attempts fail, moral violence must be used to fight immoral violence.


There is no link between having a good education and being a good person.


Values.  Always values.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Second-Time-Dennis-Prager/dp/006098709X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280179609&sr=1-1








Friday, July 23, 2010

Two Parties ... Same Destination



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"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!" -- Ron Paul

"The Internal Revenue Service is everything the so-called tax protesters said it was; nonresponsive, unable to withstand scrutiny, tyrannical, and oblivious to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution." -- Joseph Banister
  
"The Federal Reserve (Banks) are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this Nation is run by the International Bankers." -- Louis McFadden





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http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=69655&v=history






Ramesses Tom Leppert would father more than 100 children, survive ancient egypt's most legendary battle, and blanket every corner of the empire with massive monuments to his own ego.






 http://www.trinityrivercorridor.com/bridgepics/index.html




http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/05/mayor_tom_leppert_i_can_tell_y.php


There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein

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Ever since our government decided to adopt the Soviet economic model instead, the mechanism of profit and loss no longer applies. 


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The Obama Administration's War On Food

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Quiz Time !!!!

Joe Biden castigates the President for not withdrawing American troops from Iraq.





Which President is Joe Biden speaking to ?


George W. Bush

Barack Hussein Obama






HT: Ed Kless

Did You Learn About Drowning From Watching Television ??

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. -- Frederic Bastiat


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StrengthBox gym - East York, Ontario



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http://www.geekologie.com/2010/07/scientific_bites_the_periodic.php

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"Big Governments make for small citizens." -- James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy

"Corruption, like a cancer … eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, floppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society." -- John Adams

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators." -- P. J. O'Rourke

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The Bellamy Brothers and Krista Branch






Friday, July 16, 2010

Pete "I Got No Idea" Sessions

You'll be needing this, Pete Sessions, and lots of it, to bind your wounds.






HT: Ron Cole
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We possess the only nervous system that is aware of the phenomenon of aging.

Aging is a mask for the loss of this intelligence.

An estimated 6 trillion reactions are taking place in each cell every second.

Erwin Schrodinger ended his life believing that the universe was itself a living mind.

Someone who doesn’t see the world “out there” as a threat can coexist with the environment, free of the damage created by the stress response.

Any time choice seems to be cut off, some form of illusion is operating.

If wearing out were the true cause of aging, it would be a good strategy to rest in bed all your life.

What makes for a straighter spine, vitamin-D milk of self-esteem?

For millions of people, life is so frustrating that their only hope of relieving stress is by overeating and drinking, while whole societies try to escape their miseries by attacking other countries.

It has been estimated that 90 percent of the thoughts a person has in a day are a literal repeat of his thoughts of the day before.




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The Word of the Day for July 15 is:

ab initio  \ab-ih-NISH-ee-oh\  adverb
: from the beginning

Example sentence:
"What does not exist ab initio is wealth; wealth must be created by sustained human effort." (Richmond Times Dispatch [Virginia], December 14, 2008)


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Government-coerced redistribution is never a good idea, but the worst type of welfare is when poor people are forced to subsidize rich people. That's a good description of TARP, and the politicians who voted for it should breathe a sigh of relief that they are getting bounced out of office instead of tarred and feathered.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11983






   










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We get, and deserve, the tyranny we tolerate. We get it because we teach officious government officials that regulating our life is their birthright. More frighteningly, we get it because we teach our children that the role of the government is to regulate our life — thus dashing their chances to be free people.
http://www.popehat.com/2010/07/13/were-from-the-government-we-know-whats-best-for-you/
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"A free society can exist only when public spirit is balanced by an equal inclination of men to mind their own business." -- Edward A. Shils

It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole. -- Adolf Hitler

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Matt Ridley - The Rational Optimist

 Matt Ridley talks about the advent of trade and how the collective brain creates prosperity. 


 http://www.rationaloptimist.com/



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One of the great things about capitalism is - If you're opposed to capitalism, if you're opposed to free trade, no one is going to force you to participate. -- Tim Lebsack


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"The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet how can anyone speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?... With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?"
-- Emma Goldman

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead

"Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery." -- Mikhail A. Bakunin


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Friday, July 9, 2010

" I'm A Lawbreaker And I Want To Be Your Congressman / Hypocrite "


How to reduce crimes not committed under the influence of alcohol

Human beings are remarkable things: when they want to do something, no amount of tyranny, even that of jail, can stop them.


It's like the old Soviet-style joke: they pretend to regulate us and we pretend to be regulated.

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"Give me again my hollow tree
A crust of bread, and liberty!"
-- Alexander Pope

"Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare." -- John Dryden

"One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."
-- Leonardo da Vinci

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/
 

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How The Founders Might Judge Today's Americans

Justice Samuel Alito, in writing the majority opinion, said, "Individual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment." The founders would have responded "Balderdash!" 

The Founders' Vision Versus Ours by Walter Williams



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"The man who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  -- Benjamin Franklin

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."
-- Edmund Burke

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


There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. – Albert Einstein




Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. ” --  Kahlil Gibran 



"Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency." -- Epicurus
   
"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit." -- Grover Cleveland

"It is very certain that [the commerce clause] grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government."
-- James Madison


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Thursday, July 8, 2010

$4.9 Million To Expand The McKinney Avenue Trolley

I was roaming the gardens at the campsite, listening to the night music, wondering, wondering how the McKinney Avenue Trolley was going to survive.

Without necessary funding from the stingy taxpayers of Michigan, Louisiana, and Puerto Rico, the communal hotels, pubs and banks of Uptown Dallas would wither like a History Channel skyscraper.  Not to worry, our blessed benefactors of all things ancient and crawling decided to send us several millions to expand this monument to the carriage bolt and overhead power lines. Our ground level melding of pavement and rail shall not be in vain !

In most American cities, the trolley disappeared soon after World War 2 (known in Europe as "that episode when the Americans saved our asses again"). The USA hasn't declared war since then but as long as Congress gives authorization we're not breaking any rules. Jump forward a few short lives later and a virus called "the 80's" infects Dallas. After some jackhammerin' and feasabilitystudyin' the McKinney Avenue Trolley Authority was born.
Read all about it.

Below, some pictures of the latest in people movers.

This is "Birney" a beautifully restored single-truck steetcar.  Boarding the car are members of the Motorbus Society.  In the background is City Place standing above a lonely, outdated DART Rail Station.  Ahhhh, spring in Dallas.... cool breezes, shirt sleeve weather and the opportunity to ride a streetcar to the DMA.




 This picture is copyrighted by Brandon Kilgore.  Hope you don't mind Brandon, I just borrowed your pic of Matilda to show how some of MATA's streetcars have the latest innovation in creature comfort, cooled air, very much like the Texas Theatre, the first theater in Dallas with air conditioning.



MATA rides are free with the exception of private parties.





Residents of Jacksonville, Florida adore the MATA. They've devoted a web page to explaining how "the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority is a great model to follow. The 3.6 mile line was installed in late 1980s with funding from private developers and donations."  If you're studying city planning be sure to look at the pictures - textbook examples of the term 'mixed-use development'.




This is a map of the MATA route.
Many distressed and blighted businesses along this route desperately need a bit of $4.9 million to keep from having to close their doors. Things are tough all over. 








This blogger had a lot of nice things to say about his/her visit to Dallas, DART and the MATA. (no hard feelings about the WW2 comment, ok?) I hope they were being sarcastic when they captioned this photo with the phrase "a touch of authentic wild west."   Sarcasm sometimes eludes me.



 4.9 Million FRN's

Friday, July 2, 2010

Twelve Political Actions To Improve Your Life











End corporate welfare.

IPO the USPS.

"What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few -- as we have learned to our sorrow. What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias..."
-- Learned Hand
(1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Nancy Does Stand-Up. She Is Joking ?.....Right ??



HT: Stephen Smith
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"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Indeed nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty: For as violations of the rights of the governed, are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner, as to touch individuals but slightly. Thus they are disregarded. The power or profit that arises from these violations centering in few persons, is to them considerable. For this reason the governors having in view their particular purposes, successively preserve an uniformity of conduct for attaining them. They regularly increase the first injuries, till at length the inattentive people are compelled to perceive the heaviness of their burthens — They begin to complain and inquire — but too late. They find their oppressors so strengthened by success, and themselves so entangled in examples of express authority on the part of their rulers, and of tacit recognition on their own part, that they are quite confounded: for millions entertain no other idea of the legality of power, than it is founded on the exercise of power." -- John Dickenson

"Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master." -- Sallust

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back. -- LEO TOLSTOY, What Then Must We Do?

"Freedom is alone the unoriginated birthright of man; it belongs to him by force of his humanity, and is in dependence on the will and coaction of every other, in so far as this consists with every other person's freedom." -- Immanuel Kant

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." -- Patrick Henry

"Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die." -- Robert Burns



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