Government against the tide

Boom and bust is the nature of reality. The geological and fossil records present just two of countless convincing examples. There is no stopping it. We can’t halt the seasons. We can’t interrupt the tides. Powerful cycles will run their course.

The history of human activity is a long chronicle of boom and bust. That is especially so with human economic activity. When too much of something is created by a boom, the boom goes bust.

Farmer’s plant and harvest too much crop in a boom, the price spirals down into a bust. The eventual scarcity of that crop caused by the bust triggers another boom, and the cycle continues.

Demand for real-estate becomes a boom with rising prices. Eventually, the market becomes saturated with buyers; prices begin to fall; the buyers become sellers; and the market crashes into a bust. When the market becomes saturated with sellers, and prices are ridiculously low, new buyers suddenly appear; another frenzy ensues which evolves into the next boom, and the cycle continues.

There is no stopping it. As long as there is human economic activity, there will be cycles of boom and bust. When governments intervene artificially to try and stop the pain, they only delay and compound the effects of the cycle, making things worse.

The federal government, for example, grossly exacerbated the last housing boom. Its legislative policies of easy credit and encouraging home ownership for everyone resulted in a flood of new buyers into the market, a large percentage of whom could not otherwise afford to buy.

The market became saturated with homes and buyers. Prices continued to rise. When the normal economic cycle was ready to bust, the government stepped in again to stop it; to encourage even more unqualified buyers with all kinds of financial incentives and legislative decrees. Anyone could now buy a home.

The boom expanded seemingly forever. But eventually everyone who wanted a home had one, and the un-creditworthy ones began to default on their loans in droves, prices crashed, the market is flooded with sellers of homes, and the resulting bust has caused catastrophic financial damage to the economy – far greater than would have resulted from a normal turn in the cycle.

What did the federal government do then? Why, it blamed the catastrophe on private business; on Wall Street greed; and run-away capitalism, that’s what. As government always does, it blamed its failures on the governed. “We need more regulations on business,” declared the government.

But do we?

The federal government has constitutional power to regulate commerce; the power to make laws; declare rules; to tax; borrow; lend; control the flow of cash and credit; monopolize and print the currency; determine the money supply; arbitrarily set interest rates, and spend huge sums on a vast scale. In short, the federal government today controls the economy almost entirely -- not business, not Wall Street, and not capitalism. No private business or group of private businesses has anywhere near that kind of power. This is common knowledge.

Why, then, is it so difficult for most people to understand and accept that the meddling of government into the normal boom and bust economic cycles is responsible for the out of control financial consequences which loom so large in America today?

The President Will Make it All Better

President Obama will be in Tucson Arizona today to address the nation at a memorial service for the victims of the recent shooting spree there. The President of the United States and his entourage will be the focus of this event.

He needs to chime in his thoughts and opinions along with the rest of the politicians. "It's going to be important,” the President told reporters, “to feel as if we are speaking directly to our sense of loss, but also speaking to our hopes for the future and how out of this tragedy we can come together as a stronger nation.”

Some political pundits remarked that “it will be a defining moment for his presidency.”

Huh?

Since when is it the president’s job to do this? Why this is even considered a political event? How could his remarks possibly become a defining moment for his presidency? Why is his appearance in person important? Why is it necessary for the President of the United States to address the entire nation over this? Why do his feelings about “our sense of loss” matter? What do “our hopes for the future” have to do with anything? Can he possibly explain “how out of this tragedy we can come together as a stronger nation”?

Gee, can our president really turn a horrible bloodbath into a positive for us? We can be a stronger nation because of this? President Obama seems to think so.

Amazing! With a few more tragedies like this, along with our fervent hopes for the future, America can become even stronger. That is the logic of Authority!

Odds Are Irrelevant When the Game Is Rigged

The U.S. troop advantage in Afghanistan is 12 to 1 over the Taliban according to recent news reports. Apparently, despite all their casualties since the war began, the Taliban have managed to maintain a fighting force of about 25,000 strong. That’s 300 of American’s finest professional soldiers, armed to the teeth with the most expensive and sophisticated weaponry in the history of warfare, against 25 dedicated but ill equipped amateur thugs. Twelve to one seems like pretty good odds.

Meanwhile, NATO is busy with the task of training Afghan security forces to the tune of $20 billion dollars over 2 years, and plans to continue its mission after that for at least another 5 years, and billions more. So it seems that the Afghans will soon have a wonderful security force to protect their “democracy.”

But, wait a minute -- now we learn for sure that our Afghan friends, including the President’s family, big businessmen, and high placed officials, are… (Gasp)… corrupt!  They’re in league with the enemy! Our spies have discovered what they call “Malign Actor Networks,” intricate economic connections between the “good guys” and “bad guys,” all financed, of course, by the billions and billions of dollars in aid from the West.

The Afghan government is crumbling from rot while giving U.S. aid to the “enemy.” Now we know that neither side would benefit all that much by an end to the conflict.

The Afghan war has the unique distinction of being the longest running military campaign in the history of the United States of America – longer than the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and Korean War – longer than World War I and World War II combined and with no end in sight.

We have kicked the Taliban’s butt repeatedly from Kandahar to Kabul, but they just keep coming back in the same numbers as ever. If the U.S. left tomorrow, the “democracy” would instantly vaporize in Afghanistan. In short, things would go on as normal. As we stay longer and longer there will surely be much more of the same. Like Vietnam in the last generation, it comes down to another no win situation for the U.S.A. The only winners are the ones raking in the dough.

And the cruel irony of it all is that it was our government’s longstanding Middle East political and military meddling in the first place which got us into this mess. That’s what we get for trying to be the world’s Authority!

Scam by any other name …

A new billboard advertisement sponsored by American Atheists in Huntsville, Alabama, has provoked the mighty army of American theists into a minor uproar over the simple declaration that all religions are scams.

The atheists define "scam" as “a fraudulent business scheme or ploy to intentionally mislead a person, usually with the goal of financial gains.” By that definition, religion has investment swindler, Bernie Madoff, looking like a land fill rag picker in the grand universe of scams.

Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, devoted a segment of his popular show to the question of why atheists would want to “insult” religious people by calling religion a scam. That’s like wondering why anyone would want to “insult” Madoff’s hapless victims by calling his Ponzi scheme a scam.

"Organized religion is just a sham and a crutch for weak minded people who want to go around sticking their noses in other people's business," former Minnesota governor, Jessie Ventura once said. Articulate astute politician, and popular professional wrestler, Mr. Ventura knows a thing or two about scams.  But for his atheism, he might have been president.

Religion is culturally promoted for the purpose of inducing sacrifice by means of deception in conscious minds. It is a premeditated assault upon reason. At its best, religion is intellectual dishonesty; at its worst, absolute tyranny. Religion is fraud by every definition of the word.

Churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues are warrens of deceit. If religion were not constitutionally protected in this country, all the priests, preachers, rabbis, and Imams would have to go directly to jail.

I don't say all this to make people mad. Let's just be honest. How many times must spirituality be debunked before people realize that spirits are imaginary? A spirit is a conceptual abstraction in your mind. They are never experienced within the contextual reality of existence. Unconsciously you have always known that. We are all naturally born atheists.

The U.S. Constitution First Amendment Free Exercise Clause recognizes religious folks’ right to scam each other in the name of God -- an imaginary spirit who demands sacrifices – a metaphor for ultimate human Authority!

But there is a limit to this right, and that is found in the Establishment Clause – the first sentence in the Bill of Rights -- which requires government to remain neutral in matters of religion.

Theoretically, at least, it’s a constitutional win-win for theists and atheists alike.

Julian Heicklen: My Hero

An American jury has enormous power. It determines the facts; the weight and credibility of evidence; the believability of witnesses; and especially the application of law to the case.

Jury verdicts determine innocence or guilt, liability or no cause for action. They are not infallible. Mistakes are often made. Verdicts have been corrupt. In most cases, though, a jury will try diligently to do what is right. If it thinks something about the case stinks, it has the power to disregard evidence and/or refuse to apply the law.

That’s called “jury nullification,” and, like it or not, it’s been part and parcel of our justice system for centuries. Judges, prosecutors, and all government Authority! hate it. They think they have all the power. They want juries to follow their instructions, and their instructions never say anything about nullification.

Most jurors are ordinary citizens, serve only once, and thus do not realize the true extent of their powers. They just dutifully obey the instructions of the court, then rubber stamp a verdict, even if they disagree with the law, or the application of it to an accused under the peculiar circumstances of a case.  

Enter the frail elderly white haired Professor, Julian Heicklen, authentic American hero, to peacefully and politely inform them of their lawful powers. Dr. Heicklen spends valuable free time exercising his First Amendment constitutional right to distribute Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) literature outside in front of federal courthouses.

For this valuable service he has been deliberately ignored by the mainstream media; wrongfully arrested, handcuffed, and imprisoned numerous times on the orders of federal judges or police; dragged to mental hospitals; medicated with tranquilizers against his will; beaten, tortured, sodomized, and otherwise cruelly abused by medical personnel in collusion with the police; only to have all charges against him dropped every time – because he has done nothing wrong.

Dr. Heicklen is a true champion of liberty; battered, beaten, but triumphant in the cause of freedom from unfettered government Authority! 

Dr. Julian Heicklen, Sir: You Are My Hero!

Zero Tolerance in the 21st Century: Justice Sans Reason

Justice as an ideal value is fundamentally necessary for the viability of civilizations. Each of us instinctively knows what justice is. Wrongdoing which harms another requires justice. Justice includes deserved punishment as the rightful consequence for one’s wrongful acts. It is the equivalent of fairness.

Proper justice is grounded in reason, logic, and due regard for all the circumstances – not in a rigid, inflexible, one size fits all schedule. The punishment should fit the crime.  We all agree with that.

  

In America, it used to be that a kid caught with something he wasn’t supposed to have at school had it confiscated by his teacher to be returned to him at the end of the day with a stern warning not to bring it again. Kids used to bring their dad’s WWII swords and pistol souvenirs to class for show and tell while no one so much as batted an eye.

But times have changed drastically from only a decade ago when the “War on Terror” and “zero tolerance” found their way into the American lexicon.

Zero tolerance policy is uncooked justice without the pinch of reasoning.

Draconian punishment, un-tempered by the essential elements of fairness, logic, perspective, and common sense, is the usual result.

The latest victim is an exemplary student athlete at a North Carolina high school, suspended for the remainder of her senior year, and charged with a misdemeanor for having a small paring knife in her lunchbox. She accidentally took her father's lunchbox to school; school officials searched it; found her Dad’s apple peeling utensil; banned her from campus; and then charged her criminally with misdemeanor possession of a weapon on school grounds. The incident is likely to ruin her entire academic career.

She might have brought a baseball bat to gym class without such unpleasant consequences, though that instrument could easily be employed to bash in the heads of fellow students and teachers alike. She might have used her athletic shoelaces as a garrote to strangle one of her classmates. Her school apparently isn’t afraid of shoelaces. A pencil or ballpoint pen might be used to gouge out a few eyes, but those aren’t considered weapons either.

Indeed, she might have brought a hundred assorted “weapons,” from bobby pins to paper shears, plastic bags to nail files, without arousing the mighty omnipotent high school Authority!

She could have left the little knife at home and gone to the school kitchen for a big knife were it her intent to stab someone. Of course, we all know that it was not her intent to bring a weapon to school in the first place, and certainly not for the purpose of harming anyone. The school officials know that. The police know that. The prosecutor knows that. Anyone with half a brain knows that.

So why didn’t the education thugs just confiscate the “weapon” and return it to her at the end of the school day with a warning, as any reasonable teacher has done for centuries? Why were they even searching through her lunch box?

Zero tolerance! Absolute and unequivocal zero tolerance – that’s why. The deception in consciousness in this case is the delusional necessity for zero tolerance. To Hell with circumstances; reason doesn’t count; she broke the rule which makes us safe from terrorists in our War on Terror. She’s a potential terrorist. She must pay the price for zero tolerance. Even if we all know she isn’t a terrorist, we’re going to treat her like one anyway because terrorism is serious business since 9/11 and requires zero tolerance.

By far, the most common terrorist of them all is this mindless governmental Authority!

2011 And Beyond: A Space Odyssey Boondoggle

According to Fox News, a round-trip ticket to the orbiting International space station in 2011 and 2012 will cost NASA as much as $51 million per person, up almost 100% from the current $26 million. The price will jump to $56 million in 2013 and 2014. That’s $112 to $168 million taxpayer dollars every 6 months or so to finance the adventures of 2 or 3 new space cadets.

Meanwhile, the federal government bureaucracy will continue funding an already defunct rocket to nowhere program until March, 2011, costing taxpayers another half billion unnecessary dollars. Why? – Because several wily congressmen inserted clauses into NASA’s 2010 budget to protect all the lucrative “space jobs” in their home districts, effectively preventing NASA from shutting down the doomed program.  

On top of that, NASA says it wants to modernize the Kennedy Space Center into a "21st-century spaceport." Manned missions to Mars are in the planning stages, which, of course, will eventually cost us many more billions.

But why send good men and women deep into the dangerous vacuum of space when you can send a robot instead? If it were up to me, NASA, and the entire government space program boondoggle would be scrapped immediately; space station, space shuttles, space cadets, and all; especially the proposed manned space missions to Mars. Space technology and development should rightly and properly have been left to the private sector from the beginning. Private business would never tolerate such unprofitable waste.

I remember when all this nationalist space race collective hysteria started. The year was 1957. The Russians had just launched Sputnik, their first tiny Earth orbiting satellite. Americans were shocked and frightened; the cold war was quickening; Rooskies were winning the space race; and politicians were having a field day.

Twelve years, and many billions of dollars later, in the summer of ’69, President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade was realized. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, called the feat: “One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it?

Americans were positively giddy with space age patriotic pride and all the fresh arrogance that goes with it. Space was now the final American frontier. We Americans were going to conquer and then colonize the universe. Science fiction was coming true. Money was no obstacle. We had to win the space race at all costs.

That was nearly 42 years ago. There have indeed been untold billions in costs. Lots of space cadets have come and gone. Several have been killed. But there is no colony on the moon, nor will there be. Mankind is not adapted for a decent life on the moon. We all know that.

The moon is a desolate dangerous place. It’s dust and rocks; extreme hot and cold; deadly cosmic rays; no atmosphere; no air; no water; no food; no life; and, aside from an admittedly spectacular view of Earth, and the vastness of outer space, no entertainment – nothing that people need or want. (When there is a potential profit to be made in space, you can bet that astute businessmen will find it and start supplying people with what they want.)

In short, there was never any practical reason in the first place to send men in a tin can rocket ship to the moon, except perhaps to have them jump around in the low gravity for the cameras, collect some rocks, and hit a few golf balls.

Like the climbing of Mt. Everest, however, it was done solely because it could be done. Our proud nation had to be the first to do it – you know – for the billions worth in bragging rights, and for those lucky individuals involved in the government feeding frenzy at the expense of American taxpayers. We won the space race! We won it! And, nobody is going to take it away from us.

Yes, we loony Americans will probably be the first nation to set a collective human foot on Mars too, where we already know for sure there is only more dust and rocks; extreme temperatures; no air; no water; no food; and no entertainment. Mankind is not adapted to any kind of decent life on Mars. We all know that, but we’ll go there anyway, in person and in the flesh, because we’re Americans, and we can.

Never mind the huge expense, the unreasonable risks of harm, and the fact that there is no profit in it; no practical reason whatsoever to do it; that’s not the point. We’ve been spaced out and caught up in another mass deception in our collective consciousness for the last 54 years.  

We need to fulfill the awesome scientific pipe dreams of Star Trek and Star Wars.

So says the mighty American Space Authority!