Thursday, January 11, 2007

Political Mavens » Who owns you?

Eric Peters makes a great point. Why should the state care more about whether I wear a seatbelt than they do about whether I am overweight?

Mr. Peters writes:


The point is not whether something is (or isn’t) in your own best interests. It is who should have the final say? You? Or Big Momma? When we turn 18 and achieve legal adulthood, in theory at least, we are supposed to be masters of our own destinies — and our right to choose (for good or ill) sacrosanct — at least, so long as we’re not harming anyone else in the process.

Electing not to wear a seat belt surely falls into that category. We may be injured (even killed) in the event of an accident. But the only person directly affected in that event is — us. And please, no nonsense about “society” or the effect on loved ones. The same could be said — and then some — about sedentary, overweight people who choose to risk an early death from atherosclerosis and impose enormous costs on “society” (principally in the form of increased health care expenditures, etc.).

Interestingly, we don’t waylay overweight, sedentary people outside McDonalds, do we? There are no “Operation Weighty Waddlers” — no Girth Checkpoints.

Why is it ok to exercise choice (even if it’s clearly a bad choice) for the one — but not the other? ...

But the core issue here is — who owns us? If my body is my property, then it follows I have the right to use it as I please, so long as no direct harm to others is involved. No one (yet) has dared to suggest that people who enjoy skiing, motorcycle riding or other “risky” activities be fined or jailed for deciding to assume the extra risks involved. But the state feels no compunction about asserting its ownership rights when it comes to buckling up.

Is there a distinction that justifies this? If so, I cannot discern it...

As with the “war on drugs” — which targets some drugs (pot) but not others (alcohol) — it is simply a matter of laws blowing with the winds of political correctness. Being fat and unhealthy (or jabbering on a cell phone)? Hey, that’s ok. But fail to buckle up for safety — and it’s $100 bucks, chief.

We submit to this at our peril, though. Because having established the principle that it may intervene in our private affairs on any one count, it has established the idea that it may do so on any account. Those who fervently believe in the soundness of seat belt laws may not like it so much when the Health Laws are passed a few years down the road (at the behest of HMOs, no doubt) and they find their big bellies and hammy jowls in Big Momma’s crosshairs, too.


Political Mavens » Who owns you?

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Highway Robbery | The John Birch Society - Truth, Leadership, Freedom

Jim Capo gives some interesting commentary on the article in the current issue of Mother Jones magazine which provides insight into the sell-off of the Indiana Toll Road and other public infrastructure assets in the US to foreign investors.

Highway Robbery | The John Birch Society - Truth, Leadership, Freedom

Saturday, January 06, 2007

3000 American Deaths in Iraq by Ron Paul

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas. Dr. Paul delivered the following words before the US House of Representatives, 5 January 2007. I agree with him that this war would most likely never have been fought if Americans had demanded that their Congressmen follow the Constitution and declare war before sending troops to Iraq.


The regime in Iraq has been changed. Yet victory will not be declared: not only does the war go on, it’s about to escalate. Obviously the turmoil in Iraq is worse than ever, and most Americans no longer are willing to tolerate the costs, both human and economic, associated with this war.

We have been in Iraq for 45 months. Many more Americans have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first 45 months of our war in Vietnam...

The election is over and Americans have spoken. Enough is enough! They want the war ended and our troops brought home. But the opposite likely will occur, with bipartisan support...

Three thousand American military personnel are dead, more than 22,000 are wounded, and tens of thousands will be psychologically traumatized by their tours of duty in Iraq. Little concern is given to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war. We’ve spent $400 billion so far, with no end in sight.

This is money we don’t have...

Where the additional U.S. troops in Iraq will come from is anybody’s guess...

Some Members of Congress, intent on equitably distributing the suffering among all Americans, want to bring back the draft...

Instead of testing the efficacy of the Selective Service System and sending more troops off to a war we’re losing, we ought to revive our love of liberty. We should repeal the Selective Service Act. A free society should never depend on compulsory conscription to defend itself.

We get into trouble by not following the precepts of liberty or obeying the rule of law. Preemptive, undeclared wars fought under false pretenses are a road to disaster. If a full declaration of war by Congress had been demanded as the Constitution requires, this war never would have been fought. If we did not create credit out of thin air as the Constitution prohibits, we never would have convinced taxpayers to support this war directly from their pockets...


3000 American Deaths in Iraq by Ron Paul

Gil's Libertarian Mix Tape by Gil Guillory

Gil Guillory is an engineer in Houston. It's fun seeing a couple of my favorite bluegrass songs (The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn, Bright Sunny South) by one of my favorite artists (Alison Krauss and Union Station) on Mr. Guillory's list of songs expounding libertarian ideas.

Gil's Libertarian Mix Tape by Gil Guillory

Duke: The Anatomy of a Hoax by William L. Anderson

William L. Anderson, Ph.D., teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Dr. Anderson writes:


As the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans continues to fall around Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong, and as Nifong’s own future becomes even more uncertain, it is time to take a cold, hard look at how this hoax ever got legs and has advanced as far as it has. Make no mistake about it; this is a hoax, yet as I write, the three young men still face felony charges that could put them in prison for most of their lives.

No one, except perhaps the North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP and its supporters, along with Wendy Murphy, still claims that the young men raped, much less kidnapped and assaulted Crystal Gail Mangum on March 14, 2006...


Duke: The Anatomy of a Hoax by William L. Anderson

Friday, January 05, 2007

Putting More Globalists in Charge of Iraq War Won't Bring Needed Change

John McManus echoes my thoughts on the Iraq War.


What [President Bush] should do is begin removing our forces and cease attempting to force his brand of government on nations that don't want it. It certainly isn't based on freedom, because that cannot be forced on anybody


Putting More Globalists in Charge of Iraq War Won't Bring Needed Change | The John Birch Society - Truth, Leadership, Freedom

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Indiana's a natural for Eastern DST? -- not!

As others have pointed out, eastern time is centered on 75 degrees (Philadelphia) and central on 90 degrees longitude (Peoria). The natural boundary is the average -- 82.5 degrees. Checking the atlas shows that this boundary runs down the middle of Ohio and down the eastern borders of Michigan and Kentucky.

It takes the sun about 45 minutes to travel from Philadelphia to Indianapolis, but only about 15 minutes to travel overhead from Indy to Peoria.

From a historical perspective, there is evidence that being on central time was not bad for Indiana business, and may even be better for business than eastern time.

By the state's own figures (pdf page 7 of 44), Indiana's per capita income was 106.4 percent of the national average in 1953 (when most or all of the state was on central time year-round, and had been for decades).

http://www.in.gov/iedc/pdfs/Strategic_Plan.pdf

By 2006 this figure had dropped to 91.4 percent. This is about four decades after beginning the grand experiment of having a big chunk of the state move from Chicago to New York time for the cooler portion of the year.

It's hard to avoid noticing that the state economy really seemed to be "hitting on all cylinders" when the whole state was on central time and things have really come apart since most of the state started to flirt with eastern time.

As far as when it gets dark this time of year, that's more a function of our latitude than our time zone. With only about 9 hours 25 minutes of sunlight on January 2, the average sunrise and sunset times for places at Indy's latitude around the world are about 7:21 am and 4:47 pm. Since we're not in the exact middle of a time zone, the closest we can get to these natural times is on central time, which would give Indy a sunrise of 7:06 am and sunset of 4:31 pm.

As far as whether daylight saving time really gives the benefits it is purported to, that's another bag of worms for another day.

Bill
Tue, 2 Jan 2007, 7:20 am EST


State's a natural for Eastern DST

Monday, January 01, 2007

Zoning: The New Tyranny

James Bovard is the author of Shakedown (Viking Press, 1995) and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin's Press, 1994).

Mr. Bovard writes:


The essence of zoning is the shotgun behind the door — the pending call on police to drag someone away in handcuffs and bulldoze their home. Zoning is not simply a question of bureaucrats and local politicians coming up with Byzantine ordinances — but of the full force of government waiting to fall on the head of anyone who violates one of the constantly changing local land-use decrees...

Government abuses of zoning laws were clearly foreseen back in 1926 by Supreme Court Justice Willis Van Devanter. In his dissent to the Euclid vs. City of Ambler decision — the case that opened the floodgates to zoning — Van Devanter wrote: "The plain truth is that the true object of the ordinance in question is to place all property in a strait-jacket. The purpose to be accomplished is really to regulate the mode of living of persons who may hereafter inhabit [the community]." A brief in that case declared: "That our cities should be made beautiful and orderly is, of course, in the highest degree desirable, but it is even more important that our people should remain free."


Zoning: The New Tyranny

Zoning: The New Tyranny

James Bovard is the author of Shakedown (Viking Press, 1995) and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin's Press, 1994).

Mr. Bovard echoes my sentiments on zoning when he writes:


The essence of zoning is the shotgun behind the door — the pending call on police to drag someone away in handcuffs and bulldoze their home. Zoning is not simply a question of bureaucrats and local politicians coming up with Byzantine ordinances — but of the full force of government waiting to fall on the head of anyone who violates one of the constantly changing local land-use decrees...

Government abuses of zoning laws were clearly foreseen back in 1926 by Supreme Court Justice Willis Van Devanter. In his dissent to the Euclid vs. City of Ambler decision — the case that opened the floodgates to zoning — Van Devanter wrote: "The plain truth is that the true object of the ordinance in question is to place all property in a strait-jacket. The purpose to be accomplished is really to regulate the mode of living of persons who may hereafter inhabit [the community]." A brief in that case declared: "That our cities should be made beautiful and orderly is, of course, in the highest degree desirable, but it is even more important that our people should remain free."


Zoning: The New Tyranny