How Intelligent People Can Be Useful Idiots Too

President of HSLDA, Home School Legal Defense Association, Michael Farris, has posted an article explaining his interaction with a defender of Common Core, David Coleman, president of the College Board. You may read the article here.

The article demonstrates how men of opposing views may have a serious discussion without name calling. But I want to point out some of the obvious problems of those of the political Left & Right who are being used as "useful idiots".

Now I must be clear. I do not mean by the phrase "useful idiots" that someone such as David Coleman is an idiot. He is obviously not an idiot. I also believe that David Coleman has "good intentions" in his desire to improve the education of American children. Even Michael Farris had to admit from listening to Coleman's presentation of Common Core,

"From a pedagogical perspective, there are clearly some good ideas contained in it."

But as Farris points out, the problem isn't about some of the so-called good ideas that are a part of Common Core, but the real fundamental problem that leads to other major problems. It is being run by the Federal Government, a centralized bureaucracy intended to grow in monopolistic power.

In other words, it is not about education, but about power dressed in education. Notice Coleman's interaction as recorded by Farris,

"To his credit, Mr. Coleman noted that he was not acting in a vacuum. There are centralized mandates for education in play virtually everywhere. And many of them have very marginal educational utility. I agreed with his assessment of many current centralized standards."

Even Coleman recognized the problems of centralized power in this section of the article:

When he asked me why I thought that the Common Core was worse than other standards, I indicated that one of my chief concerns was the creation of the database that would track students throughout their educational career.

His answer surprised me. He didn’t like the database all that well. It was not originally part of the Common Core, but other people have seized the opportunity to make a centralized data collection effort through the implementation of the Common Core.

Do you see the problem that Coleman refuses to really address. He may not like a centralized database, but he is willing to chuck liberty under the bus in order to gain what he perceives as a better American education system. But in the end, the people who desire power will gain more power and nothing will change because the foundation to the problem is not being challenged.

It is not about education. It is all about centralized power.

No Longer Fooled By the Not So Serious

Some time ago I noted how Rush was upset that 3 million or so conservative voters didn't vote this last time around. Then when the IRS scandal broke, it became Rush's scape goat for why these people didn't vote. Yes, Rush has actually been arguing on his radio show that conservative voters didn't vote because the Tea Party and others were harassed by the IRS.

Now I know we think that is completely silly, but today Rush made an observation about the Republicans that we all knew and know to be true. They were never serious. The only problem is that he refuses to speak about the obvious disconnect between the Republicans and the missing voters. He said on today's show,

RUSH: I don't think they were ever serious about repealing health care, the Republicans.  I don't think they ever were.  I think that it has been lip service from the get-go.  The votes to stop -- I mean, the leadership, House and Senate, I don't think they've ever really been serious about repealing Obamacare, especially since the Supreme Court decision.  I don't think so.

So there you have it. I have argued before and I will continue to argue as such, that many modern conservatives are in many ways more akin to Classical Liberals. They are just now hearing men like Ron Paul argue for a more consistent and real case for liberty and living it out.

Since we [I consider myself one of them] are tired of the lies from the Republican Party, and since we know they will do nothing to advance liberty, and since we know the Modern Left is just pro-Statist State, then there is no place to go but to refuse to give our consent to the ruling class by participating in their voting scheme to endorse them or to grant them justification for their existence.

Now does Rush see this connection? I think he must unless of course he is so blinded by his own failed Neo-Conservative position that he fails to make the connection. Rush is no dummy. Anyone who makes up the idea of the IRS scandal as to blame for the missing voters is purposely looking in the wrong place to fool an audience. However, at least 3 million of us are no longer fooled.

It is time to change.

Yeah, That Walmart

James Fisher

I was recently debating public schools vs privatizing the education system. (Of course I'm for a free market education and not public)

When the other person said to me-

"Yeah, that's exactly what we need, a Walmart owning and operating all the schools"

He said this as if it should be self evident that Walmart is a bad thing for society?

 

So I said- you mean the Walmart that has made almost everything we buy less expensive? Making it possible for the poorest among us to own 60" LCD HD TV's and $20 phones with calling plans almost free and all sorts of wonderful things?

That Walmart?

The one that took minimum wage jobs with no benefits away from Bradlees and K Mart and turned them into $11.00 per hour jobs with health insurance and 401 K programs?

The Walmart that personally made me richer by saving me tons of money as well as time because I can do my food shopping and everything else at the same time?

That Walmart?

How awful!

Then he responded with the usual line about buying from the Chinese etc etc...

Because apparently its Walmarts fault that the Chinese produce products less expensive than Americans and regardless of this economic fact Walmart should buy more expensive products and let another business kick its ass.

Perhaps the answer to that problem is for the state to stop murdering its businesses to death through regulation and taxes and we could once again outcompete the Chinese.

I'm all for Walmart education. Truth is that would be very unlikely, unless of course a business figured out how to give us far better education so we all decided to send our kids there.

The free market works.

Join the revolution!

How Much For Your Security

James Fisher

What if the good citizens of Massachusetts hire a security firm to prevent terrorist attacks in Boston?

We all got together and chipped in equal money and paid the best private security firm we could find?

Then the bombing in Boston happens!

What would we good citizens do?

We would likely fire them, or at least judge their performance accordingly and take the best plan going forward.

Maybe that means hire a different firm? Maybe we demand a refund due to failure?
Maybe we review their techniques and find out why the failure happened?

What we would not do is instantly give them a raise and more power to interrupt our lives.

Yet this is exactly how government services work.

When they fail, unlike a private market business, their failure means they didn't have enough of our money. They didn't have enough power and right to invade our privacy and civil rights.

So they must now get more powerful, invade more civil rights, take more of our money.

This is the difference between getting your services from the state or the market.

Where the market service must serve you to your exact desire or you shit can them, the state reserved the right to fail in serving you and tell you it's your fault for not giving them enough power and money!

Rush: Where'd They Go?

Last Tuesday I managed to catch a moment of Rush's show while he was lamenting the inner problems of the Republican Party as it related to the missing 4 million voters. He stated,

RUSH: That's it. Four million Republicans that did vote against Obama in '08 sat home in 2012. Do you realize that if those four million had shown up, Romney would have won? Question: Why didn't those four million show up? Is it because of amnesty? Is it because of abortion, immigration, contraception? No way! Well, it might be. It might be the fear that the Republican Party was gonna go in that direction. Those four million said, "The hell with it!" More likely it's that. The party wasn't conservative enough in its messaging.

I personally think Rush is missing something obvious, and that is consistency. After voting for over 20 years for what I thought would be conservatives, I have discovered my own blindness, and I think many others have too.

Rush wonders about amnesty and abortion and a conservative message, but what about the police state growing up all around us? What about the never ending war on terrorism, and the fact that anyone may literally be considered a terrorist?

It is deeper than that though. I think Libertarianism is becoming more popular as an explanation of the world while offering real answers to the issues before us. I personally think many conservatives are beginning to see that the State grows in power no matter who is in charge, Left or Right. Even Rush has said as much many times.

So when a real candidate enters the Republican nomination process with real answers about how to deal with the real fundamental causes of our nation's problems, Rush calls him a dunce and refuses to deal with his ideas, doing the very thing he claims liberals do to Conservatives.

Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument, and Rush is as inconsistent as they come.

Americans...A Free People

The War of Secession from Great Britain (you may call this the Revolutionary War, but it was indeed secession) was based on the idea that our rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (property) comes from our humanity NOT from the government.

This was the American idea.

That we are all created equal in RIGHTS (not equal in material).

For the first time the idea of Nobility was struck down. Nobility was the previous system where men were born with rights over other men.

This appeal to man's logic of the nature of our rights is the Jeffersonian system of a free people that we have come to know as American.

That our populace has this engrained in its history must be carried forward, not dissolved.

This is who we are!

A free people!

Free from the tyranny of the state.

By Jim Fisher

Why Ludwig Von Mises?

James Fisher

35 minutes ago via mobile ·

The Mises Institute.

Named after the most brilliant economist ever, and you likely never heard of him.

Why?

See if I can shed light.

Ludwig Von Mises born in Austria-Hungry 1881 wrote the most thorough treatise on economics called "Human Action" where he begins by doing what was never correctly or thoroughly done before. That is defining economics. What is the science of economics actually studying? People think its about money and markets, but it's really about studying "human action".

Not psychology, but purposeful human behavior. In that all actions human take starts with a feeling of uneasiness. Were it not for this feeling of uneasiness there would be no reason for action. From scratching your nose to leaving for work in the morning, all action requires this.

Then Mises goes on to tell us the other prerequisites for human action, like the belief the action will change the outcome and the actual means to act.

For example, the human action of eating a sandwich. First you must have a feeling of uneasiness- Hunger! Then you must have the belief that eating will remove this uneasiness - that's pretty simple, we all believe that eating makes hunger go away. Then you must have the means to eat. Food, money, hands, whatever.

Perhaps this seems boring to some, but it is very important as it defines the starting point for what economics is, the study of human action, or what Mises called Praxeology (another thing you likely never heard of)

After Human Action, Mises gained a little fame and taught in Switzerland where he wrote a book called "Socialism".

In this book Mises completely dismantled the hopes of socialists everywhere by bringing forth the "great calculation debate".

Mises proved socialism was unworkable because of it not having any meaningful price system, so it could never calculate the allotment of resources correctly, thus ending in a tragedy of resource misallocation, which as Russia showed us, will result in starvation and countless other problems.

Mises brought forth a great number of reasons socialism couldn't work, but "The Great Calculation debate" was the one most socialists economists tried to actually answer.

Of course Mises writings got him in danger with the Nazi's, and he eventually fled to the U.S. and taught for the rest of his life.

When one calls himself an "Austrian Economist" as I do, this is why. We are students of Mises and others he descended from.

There are other schools of economics such as "Keynesian economics". These schools fail to even define economics. Why? They think it to be a hard science like physics or biology. They come up with complex models to attempt to predict prices that are meaningless. Why? Because it all boils down to human action, and that can never be predicted with any real meaning.

Mises set out to use economics to rationally explain our world of human actors with a real theory of prices, and the law of marginal utility, and the business cycle and what causes it. He showed us that economics can never predict with certainty, but if we rationally explain the past correctly we can understand what is likely to happen if we repeat it. But to not repeat we must have correctly identified causes and effects.

Mises was the first to tell us that the business cycle (the boom and bust cycle like we just saw in housing) is a result of monetary expansion (printing too much money).

He was the only economist to warn of the Great Depression before it happened.

He explained how the roaring 20's was a boom caused by massive printing and how, as fun as it was, it will eventually lead to a bust.

Mises was the first to define this cycle so clearly.

So why is this important?

Why the Mises Institute today?

The Keynesians don't believe printing too much money causes the business cycle. They believe its a natural phenomenon of the free market. The believe that printing money is how you fix it.

And Ben Bernanke agrees.

The Austrians say that Alan Greenspan printed too much money and caused the housing crisis. To fix it, we need to stop printing, stop interfering with the market and let the bust take hold.

Mises said the bust part of the cycle is tough because that's when the market corrects itself. All the people that went into housing must reallocate into where demand really is (because it never was really in housing, that was a false demand caused by too much money). But once people move into sectors where there is real demand, the economy is repaired.

But the Keynesians, like Bernanke, say no, we need to print our way out. People need more credit to keep buying more housing. We can't let the bust take hold. We need to re-inflate housing.

So he printed with QE1

Then printed with QE2

Now QE 3 with unlimited printing. He has been printing since the collapse and is determined to make it work.

You need to pick a side.

Ludwig Von Mises?

Or

John Maynard Keynes

All that printing is destroying our currency. Oil is over 3.50 because of inflation, that's the truth he'll never confess.

It's time to learn and choose!