Federal Stimulus Spending Is A Crock

Currently, America is in a period of economic depression stemming from a collapsed housing bubble resulting from an attempt by the Federal Reserve to boost economic growth in the wake of 9/11 (and the “.com bubble”) by drastically reducing its lending rate to flood the market with cheap investment finance. The resultant real estate boom and accompanying economic surge were based more on the oversupply of capital than the presence of any real demand necessary to sustain such growth, and as a result, the economy crashed.

In the aftermath of the crash, the government again stepped in to limit the negative market correction. This time the administration utilized a series of unprecedented “stimulus spending packages” wherein an attempt was made to jump start the economy with a massive infusion of government spending. Let’s just skip past the fact that now, on the cusp of 2010, we can see in hindsight that these spending measures have utterly failed, and that the U.S. economy is still struggling to get back up despite the rude whipping being administered by the administrations, past and present. A simple, albeit boring, economics lesson could have warned us that it would go this badly.

Our miserable politicians have now decided to repeat their own mistakes. Echoing the stupidity of George W. Bush’s idiotic defense of 2008’s massive spending debacle (“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system”), Temporary President Barack Obama recently presaged another round of wasteful “stimulus” spending in 2010, in a speech given at the Brookings Institute on December 8th:

“One of the central goals of this administration is restoring fiscal responsibility. Even as we have had to spend our way out of this recession in the near term, we have begun to make the hard choices necessary to get our country on a more stable fiscal footing in the long run, . . . At this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe . . .”

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, and for the rest of us, these statements do not reflect an accurate understanding of economics, and the president knows is. He very candidly said as much in a little publicized recent interview with socialist economist Robert Kuttner, during which he appealed to sympathetic economists to help spin his policies and make them sound somewhat credible:

“. . . we're going to need help from all of you who oftentimes are more credible than politicians in delivering that message. Because we want to leverage whatever public dollars are spent, and we are under no illusion that somehow the federal government can spend its way out of this recession.”

These obviously self-contradictory remarks should really come as no surprise. Self-contradiction is a near universal side effect of any attempt to twist reality into a more serviceable selfish falsehood. Self-contradiction is one of the most telling symptoms of a liar. Consistency, sweet consistency, can only reliably come from a solid foundation based on truth and logic, a foundation which is all too often missing in politicians, which is why the progress of human social evolution and the advancement of liberty and equality has always been to further protect the individual from the fickle selfish throes of government. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, leaps in this aspect of human development was the framing of the American Constitution. The founders believed in the natural inalienable rights of the individual and rooted this country in a firm foundation of individual liberty and limited government. Our Constitution plainly states this philosophy to be constant and unchanging. James Madison explained the eternal need for this philosophy in the 51st Federalist Paper:

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Barack Obama does not believe in this philosophy. From his book, The Audacity of Hope:

“Implicit in [the Constitution’s] structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course . . .”

This convenient disregard for absolute, universal truths is what allows him to plunge ahead, foundationless, without respect for our fundamental principles of limited government, guided only by his own selfish and relative morality. This is why he contradicts himself.

More to the topic, however, the president is wrong to attempt economic stimulus through government expenditure. The trouble with this process is that in order to obtain its money, the government must first either take it directly from the citizenry in the form of taxes, or issue bonds to investors in order to borrow the amount it intends to spend. The first option has the effect of reducing the amount of liquid capitol within the economy, which depresses the GDP and leads to increased unemployment. The second option increases the national debt, which can only be paid off through increased tax receipts, spending cuts, or the arbitrary printing of “fiat” money. Increased tax receipts stem from either economic growth or an increase in tax rates. Unfortunately for us, a historical analysis of 20th century American economics reveals that increased government spending usually results in a net loss to the GDP. History does not bode well for this approach, yet it is one of the shoestrings to which the current administration is asking us to cling. So, since we are considering massive increases in government spending, increased taxation and fiat money are the most likely outcomes. Fiat money is the money arbitrarily printed and issued by the federal treasury which increases the quantity of money units within an economy without increasing the intrinsic worth of that economy. The net result is a decrease in the actual value of an individual unit of money, in this case the dollar, and a resultant increase in the cost of consumer goods, a market quality tracked by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. An increase in the CPI is also referred to as inflation, a process which decreases the productivity of a market by effectively shifting economic wealth from the owners of the money (private business and individuals) to the borrower of the money (Federal Reserve, during deficit spending).

This is not to say that absolutely no one benefits from government spending. The entire economy of Washington, D.C. is made up of its beneficiaries - politicians, lobbyists, pollsters, and anyone else who cheered for the winning team last election and now awaits their tax-funded reward. They suckle, like pigs, at the tired teats of the taxpayers. I know. I’ve seen it. It’s gross.

So what does all of this mean for you and me, average U.S. citizens? Basically, any increase in government spending contributes to a decrease in the overall economic aspect of our quality of life. Federal stimulus spending is a total crock of shit. It’s that freaking simple.

Understanding Diversity Training

A friend of mine works for the City of Portland Housing Authority, which has the slogan "many cultures, one roof" - almost as if this were abnormal in the modern American melting pot. Hell, I should have the slogan "many cultures, one pasty white ass". Because of the uber-leftist and showy multi-culture-chic nature of Portland, Oregon, the city housing authority scores brownie points and tax dollars by collecting more needy immigrants than Angelina Jolie. As a part of this charade, employees of HAP are required to attend regular diversity training, courses designed to reduce every member of mankind into a tidy package of ethnic stereotypes. Most recently, he was subjected to a course titled "Understanding Asians". No, it was not a Mandarin Language course, nor did it instruct it's participants on the more practical aspects of understanding Asians, such as the fact that some Asian languages do not have a hard "R" sound, thus causing understandable difficulty when pronouncing certain English words. The premise of this course is basically to homogenize all Asian races into one mystical Buddhist-Taoist-Confucian Gordian Knot which, once conveniently unraveled by a highly educated “minority studies” master, provides the HAP employee with all the knowledge necessary to form an eternal bond with the soul of any one he encounters from that particular continent.

The very idea that you can familiarize yourself with a complete stranger just by attending a class about their nationality is completely disgusting and disrespectful. The fundamental thinking behind Diversity Training is basically that humans are not individuals, each worthy of equal respect and regard, but simply faceless members of one race or another, to be treated differently and with pre-judgment. The joy of diversity training is that it trains you to think of your coworker Achmed, not as "that great guy I work with who cracks the funny jokes and prays a lot", but rather as "one of those people, you know, different from you and me".

The one good thing in all of this is that there is no class titled "Understanding Portuguese-Welsh-Dutch-Danish-Irish-Scottish-Polish Americans". This means that I, at least, will never be confronted by a HAP city employee who condescendingly treats me like an old pal, just because they were taught the secret handshake of “my people” by some minority studies hack.

Racism sucks, but diversity training is not the answer. Diversity training actually makes our society worse by emphasizing the differences between us. True racism is always obvious, and a mature society deals with it in the same way as any other inequity - it is pointed out and ridiculed and shunned into non-existence. A good example of racism, by the way, can be found in HAPs hiring policy, as stated on their very own website:

"Our goal is to employ minorities in our work force to a degree that is at least comparable to the representation of minorities in the available qualified work force for a particular job within the Portland metropolitan area . . . HAP will attempt to recruit needed personnel from minority groups and low-income program participants."

What Did The 5 Fingers Say To The Red Leftist Bastard?

The Russian Soviet Revolution has failed miserably. The Chinese Great Leap Backward has brought total socio-political oppression to its people. North Korea and Cuba are now impoverished nations under the thumbs of tiny totalitarian tyrants, with Venezuela nipping along closely behind. Karl Marx was an incompetent half-wit unable to hold a job or find his pants.

The delusional red revolutionaries of the past brought violent, bloody disaster to their nations, and from the wreckage of those nations reared the true hellish face of communism, the face of socialist fascism. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat has always resulted in both the oppression of the actual proletariat and the creation of a new, more powerful class of bourgeois oppressors. Reality and human nature are incontrovertible forces that have always dealt a lethal bitchslap to the delusions of revolutionary communism.

With full knowledge of this immutable law, modern day commies have given up notions of glorious, violent revolution, and are resorting instead to a more gradual and less obvious method of parliamentary driven change. Modern day Reds often avoid the traditional labels of "communist" and "socialist" altogether, preferring the more nebulous and less insidious "leftist". No longer do their banners carry slogans of struggle and sacrifice for the good of the state. They have been replaced with the empty rhetoric of "basic human rights", "equality", and "social justice", held forth as totems against the stark reality that in all nations wherein the communist struggle has succeeded, these words are all now meaningless. The goals, however, are the same: The crushing of the Individual beneath the boot of the State.

Now is the time for well-aimed bitchslaps to the face of creeping socialist fascism. When the hags of network news depict the opponents of increased government control as conservative nutjobs, give 'em a bitchslap. When immature hopey-changey hipsters raise the red flag and spout off about "the haves and the have-not's", give 'em a bitchslap. When the greasy smiling politicians reach their grasping hands towards our hard-earned wages and our hard-earned liberties, give 'em a bitchslap. And when any man tells you that you cannot succeed on your own, because life is unfair, and that all of your problems are someone else's fault, give 'em an atomic flying bitchslap, because you don't need that shit. You are an awesome and powerful individual, capable of joy, innovation, and greatness.

My fellow strong and sovereign individuals, it's bitchslappin' time!

Jokers and Thieves

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. John Adams repressed free speech and the criticism of government. Dirty Bill Clinton cheated on his filthy hag wife. Politicians are dirty, and we all know it. Despite this, every day we see people casting aside reason and responsibility, ready to throw away truth and liberty for the sake of following the latest enigmatic demagogue. While they may eloquently seem to offer us solutions to all of our problems, our elected leaders will always fall sway to the same human weaknesses shared by us all. Our government can never be better than we the people, and just as no man ought to have dominion over another, we should never swallow the poison pill of blind fanatic loyalty to our elected leadership. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people, necessarily possesses every weakness that lies in the people. This was the very reason that compelled the founders to create a nation defined by liberty and limited government. They saw very clearly the susceptibility of power to corruption.

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
-Thomas Paine

We are, however, quickly forgetting their humble wisdom. The American government has grown in size and scope and, like a metastasized cancer, is steadily infecting every aspect of our lives. While we are still, politically speaking, one of the greatest societies in history, we should always remember that the frailties of mankind are as immutable as death, and never submit our individual sovereignty to the corruptible will of another.

It is said by some that the founding fathers would cry out in horror at the leviathan that is the American government of the 21st century (well, maybe not Alexander Hamilton, that bastard!). We've been fooled by our leaders into handing ever more power and authority over to them, and in return we have received only taxes, wars, excessive laws, and a political circus worthy of Barnum and Bailey. It was never supposed to be this way. It's time for us to stop trusting these thieving jokers with the control of our lives, and start trusting in ourselves. We don’t need their bailouts. We don’t need their medicine. We don’t need their wars. We need to be strong, confident, and responsible. We need to grow up.

It's this simple.

It’s 8:03 pm and 83 degrees outside on this beautiful summer evening. You’re just finishing supper, a simple meal of steak and a potato, cooked on the BBQ. The steak is perfect, medium rare, with pepper, salt, mustard, and cayenne, a recipe given to you by your best friend. You relax in the cool night breeze, reading about one of your favorite hobbies, while on the radio Lynyrd Skynyrd sings about everything that is right with the world. This is one those moments when God hands you an olive branch and shows you what life is all about.
This is freedom. This is America. This is why we fight to keep her sane.

Happy Independence Day!

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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 to 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Read the rest:

http://www.constitution.org/usdeclar.txt

The Roots of Gun Control

Public debate over an issue is always good, but sometimes ignorance steers the conversation off course into the realm of the absurd. This is nowhere more evident than in current discussions about the necessity of gun control. This argument has descended to the idiotic level of whether or not a person has the right to self-defense. The answer to that question is a resounding yes, but the greater question of gun control has much more far-reaching historical and philosophic importance than the petty bickering of our feeble-minded politicians who pander desperately for our votes, and speaks directly to the relationship between the individual and the state. Gun control has never served its proponents who seek to create a risk-free utopian society, as evidenced by every nation that has ever attempted it, including Britain, Australia, and Brazil. To blunt all of life’s edges is simply impossible. People have been victimizing each other since Cain slew Abel, long before the first gun was invented. The true purpose of gun control is, and always has been, the control of a population by a tyrannical authority.

Gun control efforts have been made in America since colonial times, but the original stated intent was not some vague notion of crime control. Gun control was originally enacted against all members of the black races, by white landowners, in order to more easily subject them to servitude. In 1680, a law was passed with the title “for preventing Negroes Insurrections”. This law was an outright ban on the ownership by blacks of personal weapons, including guns, swords, clubs, staffs, etc. The elitist class of the south understood full well the truth of Aristotle’s words:

“Only an armed people can truly be free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved.”

In addition to being one of the first tools of black suppression and enslavement in America, gun control was also one of the last. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to stop efforts by southern whites to deny constitutional rights, especially those of the 2nd Amendment, to former slaves and their descendants, efforts which had culminated in the terrible ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the now famous case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The events which necessitated the passage of the 14th Amendment stand as a testimony that no individual, or group of individuals, including the United States Supreme Court, can be trusted with the power to abridge the rights and liberties of a free, inherently equal, and law abiding people. Ultimate authority must always rest with the people in order that its governance never descends into tyranny.

Thankfully, the march of human history has witnessed a steady shrugging away of tyranny, whether inflicted by chiefs, priests, monarchs, or now our own elected officials who fall sway to the same lust for power as did all previous incarnations of authority. It is the constant burden of the citizen to hold its government in check, and when necessary, “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them”. Part of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that Americans will always have the tools necessary to prevent their government from becoming like the one their founders recently fought so hard to be free from. The Chinese government, for example, is well aware of this, and prohibits Chinese citizens from owning any firearms. As Chairman Mao wisely observed,
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party."

Can those of you who, like me, have never trusted Bush and his Homeland Security honestly tell me that we need never "keep and bear arms" to keep the government in check?

In the end, there is no gun control issue. A gun is simply a tool which can either be used positively or negatively. Examples of the former use include blacks who protected themselves from Klansmen, women who now protect themselves from rapists, and a people who would shrug off a tyrannical authority. Examples of the latter use may involve the commission of a crime. Any attempt to limit the tools of crime, however, will only result in the criminal taking up some other device, be it a knife, car, airliner, rock, piano wire, blackjack, illegally obtained gun, or the most common and versatile tool ever devised, the human hand. Ultimately, only our own submission to shackles can deprive us of our hands*, and only our own submission to tyranny can deprive us of our guns.

*Obviously I’m being metaphorical here. An accident involving a wood chipper could literally take our hands, but let’s not be puerile.