iPandora

The government of New York City decided it had the right and the responsibility to control the nutritional content of prepared foods sold in that city.

Michelle Obama has chosen to tackle childhood obesity (laudable, though seemingly less lofty than Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs), and joining her are voice shrilling for diet soda on school campuses and low sodium and low sugar meals in school cafeterias.

While the economy is slowing coming back in some ways it isn’t creating any more jobs right now, and with steep tax increases looming, there is little chance of it coming back with any great strength.

People are told by more and more “experts” that they aren’t capable of understanding or grasping the complexities of financial systems or education systems, loan programs or even the job market.

And the great caped crusader stands by ready (and very willing) to do it all for you.

Just sit back and relax, we’ll digest all this horribly complex stuff and feed it to you in small, easily digestible bites. Don’t worry about a thing.

How far must one go before those doing the feeding stop trying to pretend they want your input and just feed you what they decide is best for you, or them?

The problem I see with America right now is that all to many people appear willing to let that happen. Too many have accepted that they aren’t smart enough. Too many have given up trying. Too many are failing and think that is just the way it will be.

There is a fatalism feeding into a general apathy which will quickly create a society not far removed from the mentally and physically sedentary lifestyle portrayed aboard the space ships in Wall-E. Except it won’t be clean and sparkling. It’ll be dank and dirty and filthy and decrepit because there won’t be money for the cleaning lady. She’ll be just a stupid and poor as the rest of us.

President Obama said in a speech stumping for his latest power grab, the financial regulation legislation, that his goal is that the government provide clear and concise information for people making financial decisions.

My response: It’s not your job, it’s not your responsibility, and frankly, it’s none of your business.

There are plenty of sources of information, and it isn’t that hard to determine the veracity of information. And the government will get jealous when they find nobody trusts them to provide information, and so they’ll enforce an effective monopoly on their providing of financial information in the same way they legislated a monopoly for the United States Postal Service.

I don’t think much of what President Obama has championed since his election will last. There is too much energy arrayed against it. However, it is a law of the universe that energy decays and all things tend towards disorder. People are no different, if given an opportunity to bear less responsibility while still appearing to receive the same benefit, many people will shirk their responsibility. And after innumerable such trade-offs, they are left with neither benefit nor responsibility. Babies being fed by and at the will of their masters.

Fear is another powerful force we have to contend with. Fear reinforces inability and drains strength. Fear breeds dependency as few other forces can. If we fear what the salt and sugar in our diets will do to us, we can be controlled by those who claim to have the nutritional answer. If we fear the complexity of a financial situation, we are vulnerable to those who would counsel without conscience.

It seems to me that Christians, of all people, are least likely to be controlled by a grasping government. Due to God’s mantra  “Fear not!” and the recognition that the only thing we have to fear is that which can destroy souls, there is really very little a Christian ought to fear. And a fearless person is one is not prone to leveraging, or fear-mongering, or bullying, or any other tactic employed by unscrupulous power-seekers to enslave others and empower themselves.

Perhaps this is why historic bullies have sought to separate Christians from their fundamental beliefs, to destroy them bodily, or to expunge them from their turf. Fearlessness is strength.

Myth, Power, and Deception in American History

There is supposed to be a tension between the government and the people.

I worded it that way on purpose, there is no “it’s people” with the government of the United States. There is supposed to be a tension between the government of the United States of America and the citizens of the United States of America.

The United States of America is unique in that respect among nations. While all governments are responsible and accountable for their actions for and on behalf of their citizens, the United States of America is unique among nations in that, at least in the founding documents and according to common belief, it affirms that accountability and responsibility.

The government of the United States of America has traveled far from it’s original constitutional moorings, and it is important that We the people not forget the correct alignment of the spheres of responsibility in a worthwhile culture.

I don’t follow some of Judge Andrew Napolitano’s ideas and philosophies, but my disagreements are more in details than in nature and essence, and in principle there is truly little I can disagree with.

It is a sad thing when even people who firmly believe in the original intent and the founding essence of the United States of America feel sick when they recognize the truth of where we are versus where we believed, hoped, and honestly thought we were.

And it is a good thing when someone stands up and courageously tells the truth without pulling punches.

Lies the Government Told You should be required reading before election day, before tax day, anytime we hear “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The tension between We the People of the United States of America and the government of the United States of America is necessary and the superior strength and push should always come from We the People because the government attracts to itself people with the lust to dominate.

And it’s the power and pressure of the people who are the first, the last, and the only bulwark against the tyrants, petty and powerful, soft tongued and flagrant.

So purchase Judge Andrew Napolitano’s book Lies the Government Told You, and let’s put the government of the United States of America back in it’s place, back on it’s heels, back on it’s butt, back on it’s back, until its submission to We the People is total and complete.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously claimed under her leadership the Democrats would run the most ethical congress ever.

My question: why even try?

If ethics are situational and morality is ambiguous at best and pointless at worst, why even pretend, in all your intelligence, to pander to use rubes down here in the trenches?

For many of the leadership in Washington, and most of the Democrats in that rarefied local, there is no objective truth. The only morality comes from being caught.

And so, instead of claiming to run the most ethical congress ever and training a huge microscope and target on yourself, use all that energy to cover and obfuscation and hide what we know you’re going to do anyways because when you don’t believe in objective truth and morality, there’s no reason to trust you to do anything except what furthers your own aim and brings power to those things you consider most important.

So, with the recent “everybody knows except Pelosi” Rangel scandal, and now the Massa issues, and Mr. Porkulus (may he rest in peace) Murtha, and Mr. Sweetheart-Deal Dodd, and Mrs. My-Husbands-Business-Likes-My-China-Policy Pelosi herself, it seems that (D) stands for Dishonest.

The bible asks what companionship can light have with darkness. This isn’t just good marriage advice. It’s good advice for any place where we trust others to work on our behalf. For the average Joes and Janes out here in the sticks, we can still operate as friends and coworkers and have normal friendly relationships. But when we are speaking of handing power and national responsibility to people, we need to ask ourselves this: “If I wouldn’t truth them babysitting my children, why would I trust them running my country?”

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

Lax credit and easy spending policies are products of both Democrat and Republican leaderships in years past. The conservative movement has recognized the failures of this more so than their compatriots in the liberal movement. Calls for the privatization of Fannie and Freddie, two of the main contributors to the whole system of easy credit, are not likely to be heeded by the current elected leadership in Washington D.C. And Fed Chairman Bernanke believes such easy credit is the best policy, despite it’s contribution to the economic failures of the last several years.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

Political correctness is losing favor across the ideological aisles. This false equality of outcome which relies on enforced restrictions on true equality, that is, the equality of potential, has been a pernicious evil in our country. But other perniciously evil policies continue to thrive here. Policies that drag down those who have achieved in order to not unnecessarily burden those who will not achieve with that natural and good desire to become something other than the abject failures. Except that’s not right, you can only fail if you’ve started at something. Many of these haven’t started anything and therefore aren’t failures but worse. Any system that encourages people in any way to remain nothings is evil for it robs them of their humanity as surely as Nazi extermination program robbed so many of their humanity.

You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

In that iconic moment when Joe the Plumber’s question drew out then Senator Obama’s statement that we need to spread the wealth around, it revealed a misunderstanding of economic systems that time has not changed. If you want to grow jobs, you make it easier for companies to make and keep money. If you take what they make for your own wealth redistribution programs and to “spread it around” you hurt not just the business you wanted to stick it to, but all its employees and potential employees as well. This isn’t rocket science.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.

Ever since FDR, liberal leaders have been adept at pitting class against class. There is no inherent nobility in the individual man whose mind and heart must be won. There is only the group, the LGBT, the blacks, the whites, the lower class, the middle class, the upper class, the “them”, the “us”, the hispanics, the wage earners, the corporations, the haves, the have-nots. Targeted fiscal policy meant to assuage the ire of a particular class are unconstitutional as they do not benefit every American equally, which is a requirement of federal policy. It’s vote-buying and favor peddling. And the result is a torn and fragmented society beset by such tensions within it cannot unify to address situations without.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

The poor will always be among us. This doesn’t free us from a responsibility to assist them. Instead it requires we develop consistent and repeatable patterns of assistance with several criteria. There must be a filter that prevents moochers and freeloaders from taking resources that would be better appreciated and taken advantage of by those deserving poor. And the money for such charity must be given willingly, not taken without recourse. A rich man who does not give to charity only illumines the shallowness of his own soul. He does not deserve theft of his goods, only the scorn of society.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

This is a failure of nearly everybody in leadership in Washington D.C. and a result of an uncareful electorate who do not take real pains to determine the true character of the candidate or who believe that character doesn’t matter.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.

Just as by helping a butterfly escape it’s chrysalid prison you doom it to a short, painful life and quick, ugly death, by taking away the responsibilities of a person or natural societal group, you end up with stunted and immature people who will continue all the ills aformentioned.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

There are few things more evil than to do for someone else what they are capable of doing themselves. Particularly when they are not in dire need and what they need to accomplish is a task that would encourage or build in them traits of character not already full-fledged in their being.

Evil phone attacking innocent but distracted motorist

A new study is out reporting that laws forbidding cell phone use, both texting and calling, while driving do not have a significant impact on the number of car accidents. Instead, it’s distractions, not just cell phones, that kill.

In the Wall Street Journal:

Laws that forbid motorists from using hand-held phones or texting while driving don’t appear to result in a significant decrease in vehicle crashes, according to a new study by the Highway Loss Data Institute expected to be released Friday.The study, expected to be released at a conference in Washington, D.C., Friday, comes amid stepped-up efforts by federal highway-safety regulators to ban texting while driving and curb other forms of driver distraction. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood earlier this week announced rules to forbid commercial truck and bus drivers from text messaging while driving. Mr. LaHood has said he would ban all texting while driving if he could.

But the government and do-gooders who live by restricting others will not give up so easily.

The Transportation Department won’t be troubled with little things like facts:

…it is irresponsible to suggest that laws banning cell phone use while driving have zero effect on the number of crashes on our nation’s roadways. A University of Utah study shows that using a cell phone while driving can be just as dangerous and deadly as driving drunk. We know that by enacting and enforcing tough laws, states have reduced the number of crashes leading to injuries and fatalities.

In that statement they claim one substantiated claim, that the University of Utah found cell phone driving is as bad as drunk driving, and one unsubstantiated claim phrased in such as way as to scoff at substantiation, “We know that by enacting and enforcing tough laws, states have reduced the number of crashes leading to injuries and fatalities.”

That’s pretty much the same as leading an argument with “everybody knows…”, appealing to common sense without factual basis.

The Highway Loss Data Institute, which sponsored this new study, is financed by the insurance industry. This will lend credence to the study as insurance companies need to mitigate risk in order to maximize profit, and this report claims there is much less risk than previously assumed.

The facts (WSJ):

The HLDI studied data on monthly collision claims in four states that banned the use of hand-held phones by motorists before and after the bans went into effect. The HLDI also compared collision data from states that enacted bans on driving while texting or phoning to accident claims in states that didn’t enact such bans.

In New York, HLDI said its researchers found that collision claims decreased compared to other states, but the decrease began before the state’s ban on hand-held phoning took effect.

The HLDI data don’t show whether drivers involved in accidents were using cellphones at the time. But the HLDI said in a statement “reductions in observed phone use following bans are so substantial and estimated effects of phone use on crash risk are so large that reductions in aggregate crashes would be expected.”

So what are we left with? Restrictions on the use of cell phones while driving which do not affect the number of accidents.

Sounds like and apology and lifting of the regulations is in order.

Likelihood of this occuring? Nil.

Story in CNET.

Story in the Wall Street Journal.

Unrestricted free market

Gary A writes article on the investing opinion site SeekingAlpha.com claiming that while limited government sounds good, it’s not a reasonable policy if the goal is market stability:

I support the free market but unlike them I don’t trust the free market. I don’t think that having just capitalists in charge of the free market can possibly keep it free very long. Capitalists cannot police themselves. Every game has rules. Try playing baseball without umpires. Try playing tennis without line judges. There are even rules when racing at the Indianapolis 500.

I agree with him, to an extent:

I agree that having capitalists in charge of capitalism can and has caused many a problem. Having Marxists in charge of a market causes even more.

The issue is that there is no suitable force acting upon the individuals that make up a government capable of restraining their choices actions.

And the more levels of government that are constructed to check and balance any system of man only lead to more levels of waste and corruption as they, in turn, fall to the very same forces.

The brilliance of the original American system was that it pitted this thirst for power against itself by building three branches of government with competing but not overlapping responsibilities.

This system worked well enough, for in that inherent tension there was stability left for those under it.

As the government’s greatest enemy was itself, instead of the people, the people were free to go about their ways.

As the government power alignment adjusted, mainly beginning with Lincoln’s power consolidation in the Civil war the forces of government were aligned and now could seek to take power, not from each other, but from the populace.

So is it a perfect system? No. Is it better than the alternatives? It depends on how you define better. I would say it is, with better being that state where there is least government intrusion into my affairs and then only so much as is necessary to prevent me from infringing unjustly on another’s affairs.

Of course, then you get into what is just and unjust.

The whole problem is that unless you accept a sovereign moral force who/which defines morality for us unsovereign beings, there is really no way to define right except through might.

Those in power get to define morality apart from that sovereign moral entity. And without an acceptance of a sovereign moral entity there is no legitimate basis for a universal and effective set of ethics to guide the behaviors of individuals, groups, corporations, societies, or nations.

Yes, I believe it all boils down to whether or not you subscribe to the idea there is a higher power who will judge you for your actions and your intentions and the results.

Several news articles caught my attention this morning.

Michelle Obama as pop culture

In yet another article about content providers raising rates for the cable TV companies to continue running their shows, the NY Times reports millions of viewers complained at having missed a particular Iron Chef show which featured… drum roll please… Michelle Obama and the White House Chef.

I enjoy Iron Chef. I don’t enjoy a President and his family acting as though they are pop-culture icons. There is real America, lived by you and me and represented by a President. And then there is entertainment America, where we go to escape at times.

The President and his family do not necessarily belong in pop culture the same way actors and other people who haven’t actually contributed much to the nation. Or maybe that’s why this President and his family go on such shows…

Will latest jobs bill really produce jobs?

Asks ABC News implying that previous ones haven’t.

Oh, and the answer, as before, is no.

The reason, in case you didn’t already know, is that the government doesn’t produce jobs, businesses do.

Government spending costs more, has unintended consequences

The Wall Street Journal reports that government stimulus programs encouraged states to spend more instead of tightening their belts for these lean times. So now there are more, bigger programs, and less money to pay for them with.

And we’re surprised why?

Settled climate science not so settled after all

The Daily News Online on the climate emails:

It has been written that “there is room for legitimate civilized disagreement as to the role of human activity in climate change,” and that is correct. But that is not how the climate zealots see it. On Nov. 19, 2008, the president said, “The Science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.” Actually, how the earth’s climate works is the most complex question scientists have ever addressed, any conclusions that can be drawn now are “highly speculative.”

The government doesn’t like accountability

The TSA is apparently more concerned that the new media (bloggers) have found out information about their processes and procedures than they are about yours and my security at the airport and in air travel.

Thankfully cooler heads prevailed after the new media (bloggers) showed just how good they were at raising a stink.

The new media (bloggers) are read by people who care. The old media are viewed passively by people who couldn’t care less. That’s where the real power of blogging and the internet comes through.

The latest face of terror: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

The recent thwarted terror attack highlights two aspects of this war which I think deserve further emphasis.

First, government-run airport security is a joke at best, a catastrophic failure at best. Umar Farouk was on the all-important watch lists and his father had even sent a warning specifically to us regarding the threat his son posed.

The best the government can do is ban knitting needles, body search old ladies, and incarcerate people with unfortunate names and I believe it is completely reasonable that we criticize such paltry, misguided, and obviously insufficient systems as loudly as possible.

Average people: the real Anti-Terror

Second, private citizens foiled this attack without assistance from government-sanctioned law enforcement and despite their government-enforced lack of protective weaponry.

Government = 0
Citizens = 1

Perhaps the moral is, once again, don’t trust the government when you are capable.

Oh, and my bet for what the government will do as a result of the extensive and obligatory review they’ll carry out of the Transportation Security Administration is that they’ll fire a few lower level people and raise the fees charges for airport security. Cynical? Yes. Most likely true? I’m betting on it.

This polar bear doesn't give a hoot about Al Gore

Gary Sutton, writing on Forbes.com, reminds us it wasn’t too long ago the official government position on the environment was that we were in the beginnings of the next great ice age.

More than the reminder of the untrustworthy nature of such pronouncements and official positions is the why behind such windy terrors. For the government it is control of the populace through fear.

It’s the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.

Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.

For the researchers, scientists, and academics going along, it is money, support for their own strains of research.

You can’t blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.

Gary wraps up his arguments with a reminder that the climate is not the only weapon of FUD employed by those seeking power and control:

I can ask “outrageous” questions like that because I’m not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That’s another inconvenient fact.

Read The Fiction Of Climate Science.

Harry Reid, Leader

It is a normal trait of effective leaders that they find points of agreement between disparate viewpoints. Otherwise attempts at progress end in pointless wheel spinning as the factions go at each other with ferocity.

Especially bad is when the leader himself joins in the mud-slinging.

It’s a sign of anything from immaturity to imbecility. At the very least it shows they aren’t up to the job.

Enter Harry Reid. Ham-handed at best, he’s stooped low even for his own standards and equated those against the biggest boondoggle in the history of government with those against the abolition of slavery.

Yep. That’s right. A member of the party of the slave holders called people who are against the government taking over a 6th of the US economy the equivalent of slave holders.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Mr. Reid, it’s about time you got on the right side of history.