Romney/Paul Ticket a Winner

Question: What would make me want to vote for Mitt Romney for President?

Answer: If Ron Paul is on the ticket for Vice President.

It’s enough to give that wack-job radio (lack of) personality Mark Levin an aneurism. 

This would be a smart move by Mitt Romney for several reasons. The first is that he is too much like Barack Obama himself and why vote for a Liberal Republican when you can have the real thing in a Liberal Democrat? So having Ron Paul as his Vice President would set him apart ideologically and Mitt Romney needs that so very badly. He doesn’t have to adopt Ron Paul’s Libertarian ideals but he could let him go at the Federal Reserve and sit back and watch. That would be delightful!

Another good reason to have Ron Paul as part of a Mitt Romney run for the Presidency is that they really seem to get along. Dr. Paul, as elder statesman, has the experience on Capital Hill that Mitt lacks. He knows his way around the halls of Congress like few in the Romney campaign do. This is a valuable asset.

And still yet another good reason is that Ron Paul, as a consistent voice in the dissonant winds of government would keep Mitt Romney grounded and free of glaring missteps that even presidents that were considered good have made. Like Ronald Reagan granting amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens. What was he thinking? Who told him that was a good idea?

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are kindred spirits in a way. Both are seen as having "problems" because of their beliefs. Mitt for his Mormonism and Ron for his Libertarianism. 

Ron Paul would not be a “yes” man and Romney will need that if he is to set this country back on the right track. Mitt Romney is a smart man but can he go it alone without trustworthy council? Who has been the most consistent voice in Congress no matter what you may think of the man?

I can recall that Congressman Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who was at the time before he was a Vice Presidential candidate, a staunch advocate of the School Voucher Program. That’s the program where you, as a taxpayer, receive a voucher for the money you have paid toward the school system via taxes, would then be able to use that voucher to enroll your children in THE SCHOOL OF YOUR CHOICE.

But when Al Gore picked him to run with him as Vice President, Joe Lieberman never uttered the word VOUCHER ever, ever again. A true man of principle, Joe Lieberman.

Ron Paul is not another Joe Lieberman. No Sir.  

This would also be a shining achievement for Libertarianism. To have Ron Paul as a Vice Presidential nominee would be the next big step in acceptance in the ideals of freedom not embraced since the founding fathers did in 1776. How sweet that would be not for us but for this great nation. After all, we’re not in it for the money like the Liberals.

Forgotten will be the alternate disparagements and ignoring of Dr. Paul. It is no secret that the younger voters, having witnessed the failures and false promises of the past, are hearing the Libertarian message. It’s been long overdue for freedom and the freedom loving to go mainstream.

Would that it were, would that it were. 

Surveillance Drones and the Right to Privacy

The proliferation of surveillance drones and the legal right to use them will be the next hotbed of legal wrangling. Recently it was reported that a PETA-like (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) organization named SHARK (Who Gives a Rats Ass) put a private surveillance drone in the air over a privately owned plantation that was going to have a pigeon shoot. Now I don’t shoot pigeons myself and consider the critters more or less “rats with wings” but if someone wants to organize a pigeon shoot on their own land with presumably their own pigeons, as a Libertarian I would have to say it’s their right to do so.

But during this event was coined a new maxim: "Never bring a drone to a pigeon shoot." because after SHARK broke up the event by their presence, they launched their drone anyway and SURPRISE, somebody on the property in South Carolina shot the fool thing out of the air. The culprit was never found or identified. Now SHARK wants to make a federal case out of the incident which I think is a good idea but for a different reason.

I don’t think SHARK has much of a case but I do think the Broxton Bridge Plantation near Ehrhardt, S.C., the real victim in this affair, certainly does. Can anybody just fly a surveillance drone over my property? Isn’t this a form of harassment? This incident is an open and shut case of invasion of privacy.

Can my neighbor hover a drone over my house to see if I get the morning newspaper in my underwear? This is a hypothetical question of course because who reads a newspaper anymore? But the question is a valid one. Who has the right to fly over my house? Technology will eventually allow everybody to have a drone and I suppose I could probably cobble one together myself with a small camera and one of those toy helicopters they sell at the local Mall. Perhaps I can catch the woman next door sunbathing in the nude. Wait, I’ve got to make a quick run to the Mall, I’ll be right back!

Anyway, I see a new legal frontier that should give many an underemployed ambulance chasing lawyer the chance to finally pay for that private school education that they promised their wives they’d pony up for the kids. The establishment of boundaries and certain “fly-over” rights will need to be established. How can what SHARK was doing be construed as perfectly legal? If so, I should be able to fly my freshly purchased Mall “Heli-drone” over my local Police Dept. Or perhaps over my local Town Office building on a Friday to see who cuts out early. Perhaps I can even catch some local town workers sleeping on the job. This sort of thing cuts both ways.

Of course, government can just establish rules for itself which is what will most likely happen first. THEY are already exempt from laws banning talking on the phone while driving so it stands to reason that they would ban drones over “Town Property” even though it was bought with taxpayer money and should be technically construed as “Our Property”. But such is the rule of our overbearing and obtrusive government. Rules and laws are now for others and not for them.

But at any rate, this issue will have to be addressed at some point in the not too distant future. There should and will be challenges to the supposed legality of flying a drone and the rights to privacy one expects on their own property.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some flying to do.

Free Health Care for All!

The latest farcical controversy between the Catholic Church and the U.S. government is astounding on so many levels as to confuse the most astute observer.

On one hand we have the government giving away yet another chunk of taxpayer money for the colossal non-issue of women’s contraception. Add to that the over-reach and tyrannical nature of government dictating to private organizations like hospitals and insurance companies on what they’re going to do with the money they make and the services they render. Then there is the other head of the Hydra, the Catholic Organization.  That’s just for starters.

Given the political and economic climate of the United States right now where we as a nation are broke but have an incumbent president who holds the dual sword of wielding more power than he was ever meant to have but lagging so low in popularity among the paying classes that he is driven to entice a large population of those who don’t to vote his inept behind back into the White House for another acrimonious and predictably disastrous four more years.

The government giveaway campaign continues with free contraception for women. No co-pay, no nothing, the contraception of your choice is free. And if the organization has an objection on religious grounds, no worries because their insurance company must pay for it anyway. Free of charge. That’s the plan.

But anyone with half a brain or without a political agenda will admit that there is no such thing as free. Somebody, somewhere will have to bear the costs of such a plan. Go look in the mirror. Who do you see? That’s right, you’ve found the person who is going to pay more for the same services that they receive while others get them for free. But wait, they’re poor and you’re loaded so what’s another $20.00 out of YOUR pocket? You’ve got it, moneybags, working for a big greedy corporation that rapes the unsuspecting consumer by charging a price for their products and services. There are so many more deserving of that money.  And so what if your phone bill has gone up, your car insurance has increased, heating your home has gone up and the cost of your health insurance has almost DOUBLED in the last four years. What’s another 20 bucks?

Then we find the Catholic Organization has cried “foul” at being forced to provide free contraception in their businesses. Yet they have for decades been in bed with the government on so many issues, the major one lately is illegal immigration. Another is their tax free status on not only churches but for Catholic businesses like the YMCA & YWCA. Their hospitals have benefited from government money. So now they’re upset that their “partner” wants them to hand out free contraceptives? So now they find religion?

For many reasons, the Catholic Organization’s influence is waning in the United States. For one they change “religious” doctrine to suit their needs. Another is that they’ve protected pedophile priests for perhaps centuries and they never seem to let religion get in the way of closing a church one they stop producing a revenue stream. Mexico and South America is teaming with Catholics just waiting to be tapped as a useful revenue stream. Hence, the “Catholicism as a business model” is all for illegal immigrants being granted amnesty.

The economy is ¾ driven by consumer spending. That axiom is repeated like a mantra across this land but the major malfunction I see is that every giveaway takes more and more money out of the regular person’s pocket so they have less to spend. Less purchases means a reduction in production. This in turn generates less taxes and so government has less to support its giveaways. Less spending, less production. less taxes, less giveaways. It’s Economics 101. Yet the giveaways are increasing without any thought to where the money or production will come to pay for them. The word for this is: Insane. 

There is nothing in my copy of the Constitution that says the Federal Government should be in the business of providing free contraceptives to women. In fact, there is no Constitutional mandate that I can find that gives the Federal Government the right to be in the healthcare business. Or the retirement business, or the business of educating our children or a government lunch program in those schools. But the Feds have bought their way into these areas and have made them a disaster. Everything they have made a policy of or a “war” against has become a costly, bureaucratic shambles. 

So here we have it: An omnipresent and dictatorial president pushing minutia and ignoring the difficult problems in an attempt to buy votes to extend and consolidate his power, a grasping kleptocracy of a government machine that can’t find time to produce a budget over the last three years but has managed to take over private enterprise in this country and raided the treasury for their own gain. A nation of youth that has had their future spent for them for short term political gain and short-lived economic balance, and the rest of us who played by the rules, saw this coming and knew better in the first place.

Just another day at the office in “Other People’s Money-land”.

Let’s Have a War!

I know, we've had plenty already and we’re still waging two wars for this last decade plus just finished up an intervention in Libya but that’s no reason we can’t expand our sphere of influence so to speak by using our UN front for further intervention into the case of Syria or trigger a civil uprising in Iran. Our interest in the Middle East apparently knows no bounds.

And isn’t it our place, really, to save these people? We hear the masses calling out to the United States to aid them in overthrowing an uncooperative regime. They desire for us to bomb the old regime into oblivion and then help guide a new fledgling democracy, nurture their resurgent oil industry and be their Christian ally in their new Islamic Republic. We’re the United States, we’re here to help.

So what’s a little extra bloodshed for the good of the people? We’ll be saving the children! We’ll also be consolidating our influence in the region. We’re looking for the next Shah Pahlavi and we're going to find one, Goddamit! We’re laying the groundwork as I write.

The rhetoric is already flying on the American airwaves: Iran will attack US ships in the Gulf, Iran threatens to attack targets in the U.S., Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Iran to develop nuclear weapon, etc.  

This is the Iraq war buildup all over again. It’s tiresome in its lack of originality. But war is inevitable because the US will make it so.

Russia has put itself into an unenviable position with its attempts to defend the murderous Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. One can only speculate that this is an attempt to keep more US led multi-national forces out of the region and to try and fend off a US “inspired” new Syrian government. Now that’s a choice between the rock and the hard place. Good luck with that Vladimir. 

But it’s “Here we go again.” in the old Empire. Money and the promise of power will find willing volunteers and there will be blood. Unhindered by the Constitution or the U.S. Congress and powered by the American taxpayer and government printing presses, the U.S. can, with impunity, overturn injustice overseas, vanquish evil, bring the “criminals” to justice and exact the punishment on (selected) world oppressors. If you can’t tell the good guys from the bad, no worries, we’ll sort that all out for you in the press. Everything is going to be ok.

What could possibly go wrong this time?