Obama: Drill Baby Drill?

Now remember all of those stories after stories after stories of how high gas prices were President Bush's fault? Now the Huffington Post is reporting the same story but almost no mention of how Obama is driving up the price of oil, when this time, it is actually Obama's fault.

If you remember in 2008, President Bush reversed the moratorium on drilling in the gulf and the price of oil immediately went down. Of course Media Matters and others disagree that this had anything to do with it (read here), it should be obvious to all. The Left wants their cake and to eat it too. First it is Bush's fault that oil was high, then when it comes down, it's not his fault. Which is it?


There are two things in this story I'd like to point out but keep in mind, I am not necessarily questioning the facts of the story. I am questioning the presuppositions of the writer. The Left never feels it has to defend its starting point or worldview. For them it just is. Notice this paragraph:

And while the pain is widely felt -- consider all the Wal-Mart shoppers who are agonizing over how to make it to the end of the month -- the benefits are not being widely shared.

 Apparently it is the duty of Exxon and others to share their benefits. Property rights? What are those in this kind of worldview? It isn't even thought about. And it is always funny how the other guy must share his "benefits". Why is this? Now we all agree that there are times and ways in which we ought to share what we have, but the Left needs to demonstrate with a solid moral foundation as to why the government mobsters should be granted the power of taxation and weapons in order to shake down companies. Why the Alimighty Government should be granted such power immoral power is beyond me.

I would love to see what the Huffington Post has made this year. Whatever it is, I think it is evil and I think I should be getting an even part of their income. Mr. Government, would you please provide me the proper service of getting my money from them! Well of course that's ridiculous, but I love sarcasm. See my brother's post on the nonsense of this view here)


But an even more absurd and obvious lie that runs throughout this story is more or less revealed in this paragraph.

Siemenski even accentuates the positive. “Yes, when gas goes up, everybody squeaks, because it's uncomfortable,” he says. But high oil prices mean, among other things, that “it becomes more attractive to do alternative energy… The worst thing that ever happened to wind and solar power companies was when oil prices collapsed in 2008 and early 2009,” he says. Furthermore, when gas gets pricey, “people who made a decision to get a Prius instead of a Hummer get a payback, and from a societal standpoint, that's probably good.”

Ahhhh, so it is good when the price of gas goes up? Of course it is in the warped mind of the Left (remember now, the same people BLAMED EVIL BUSH for the same thing...so is it evil or good?). We all now know the Left hates free market enterprise, and by forcing the American population to go after non-existent alternative fuels, they know they get to destroy the American way of life...Liberty.

We have heard story after story how increasing American oil production will not cheapen the price of oil. Yet as is seen from above with President Bush and now with President Obama calling for more production from the Middle East, we can see that claim is contradicted (read that story here). So the lies about the idiots, Sarah Palin's statement, "Drill baby drill", can be put to bed.

So what is the point to all of this. We have a President that wants high gasoline prices at the pump. He and Hillary and others have stated this in no uncertain terms that they want this.

It should be obvious to all that whether it is through the lies of Global Warming or tax policies or drilling bans or saving the environment, the Left wants to overthrow our Constitutional Liberties for a centralized planning form of government. Now you still may be thinking, "So what?" Well, if the government can control what kind of car you will buy or where you can ride a dirt bike or what can you eat or that you have to buy health insurance, then they can literally regulate anything. By that definition, you are now property of the State. If you are property of the State, then speaking out against the Almighty State could be problems. Freedom of Speech, religion, right to bear arms etc etc. How can those thiings have any meaning in a world that simply removes your liberties by more conniving means?

Chicken Little and Oxycotin

A couple of Saturdays ago, I'm sitting on my couch minding my own business while my wife watches the news, and the story of Oxycotin breaks. The DA for the State of Florida, Pam Bondi, was sounding the massive crisis alarm. Five people were dead. Blood was flowing in the streets. Kentucky had sprung a leak, and Drug dealers were flooding the Sunshine State. The flames of hell were literally lapping the heals of the innocent. We have to do something!

When I said this is a bunch of crap, even my wife responded to me as if I had lost my mind. "Come on now. Five people are dead from their addiction. We have to do something."

Of course, this sounds great. But what is really the result of all of this crisis, we gotta do something? Let's see. A DA gets to tax more people to raise another small army in order to be able to invade homes at will. This in turn creates a black market in which drug deals go bad in which many people are killed. This in turns creates an all out fake war in which the death toll rises all the while our personal liberties have vanished, and our prisons are filled up with fake criminals, who become real criminals.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It was called Prohibition. Watch the Untouchables and then try to convince me that we need to make drugs illegal in order to save ourselves from.... Or perhaps you ought to read Chicken Little.

Intellectual Property

Several years ago I remember struggling through the intellectual property debate when MP3 were so easily exchanged using certain software, but then the Feds hunted people down like dogs, and I decided that financially the debate was over. Since my brother pointed me over to the Mises Institute's website, I managed to find a lecture on this very subject. Apparently, not only was I right on some points, I didn't go far enough. Click here to listen to a very challenging lecture on Intellectual Property. It turns out, there is no such thing except for those who love monopolies and hate real freedom. JUST LISTEN ALREADY!

FREE or not to FREE

I am a Liberal. Something I perhaps would never had said a year ago. But of course, because the Left has hijacked this term I now must clarify. I am a classical liberal.

So how did the Left hijack this term? During the great depression when FDR ran rampant with his "New Deal" taxation and regulation, those who opposed these almost always unconstitutional legislation ended up labeled as "Conservative". Conservative at this time was somewhat in the true sense of the term meaning conserving the past government structure. The supporters of the New Deal legislation gave themselves the label of "Liberals", but of course they we the ones fighting for freedom from poverty (as if this were a right). The terms stuck and have to this day.

Of course the classical term "liberal" (with its root word- liberty) means one who promotes liberty for the individual. The actual (classical) liberals that got branded Conservative lost their identity in the true fight for liberty. The FDR era has done so much to re-write history, even long before its era began. Now current liberals on the left constantly try to remove themselves from progressive history which was full of racism and elitist tyrannical progression and align themselves with the classical liberal. The contradictions between the classical liberal and today's modern liberal are glaring and smack you in the face, yet this doesn't stop them from trying to associate themselves with the founding and the true freedom advocates throughout history. The modern liberal claims you should be free from the tyranny of need. Sounds good on the surface. After all, how free can you be if you have no food and no home? But dive into what that actually means - to be free from need. How does one (the state or elitists) free someone from need? Do they just give them what they need from thin air? of course not. Do they figure out how to produce these things that would full fill the needs of people and then make sure they have them? Of course not. They take from the ones who have and give to the ones that don't. Well if you happen to be one of those people who have, hows your freedom? You're not asking to be free from want or need, your just asking to be left alone. You want real freedom, just stop stealing from me!

The true meaning of liberty is to be free from the whims and wants of other men! So to define liberty as being free from need would be to say liberty means those that don't need must supply. Is that liberty? Or is liberty actually having the right to own your own body, production, and property? I say its the latter. The Left sees that wealth and economics is a zero sum gain, meaning there is a finite amount of wealth and no more can be created. Thus if someone is rich, it means someone else must be poor. Of course the actual science of economics shows this just isn't true. Wealth is unlimited. Wealth creation comes from technology and capital.

I will explain the difference on a simple example of how the left and classical liberals understand wealth. Lets say 10 men live on an island and on this island is unlimited berries to eat. Each man needs to eat 100 berries a day to sustain himself. Each man can pick 10 berries per hour. So each man works 10 hours a day picking berries and has 14 hours of leisure to do what he wants. We will call the leisure time (14 hours per day) the mans wealth. More leisure, then more wealth to each man. One man figures out if he carves a stick a certain way then he can use it to pick 20 berry's per hour instead of 10. But he will need 10 hours to make the stick just so. So the man must for go some leisure time to make this stick. but once he gives up these 10 hours of his leisure time he now gets an extra 5 hours a day leisure. Or he can continue working 10 hours and trade the extra berries to someone else for something. This stick is what is referred to as "capital". Of course the other men can copy him and the "technology" of the stick will spread. Eventually each man has 19 hours per day leisure instead of 14.

Now with the extra time man can continue to invent better sticks or start making housing or whatever. There is no limit to wealth creation through technology and capital advances. But it is the Capital and technology that create the wealth. The Left doesn't see it this way. They don't understand capital and technology advances overall wealth. Even if the first man was the only one who knew how to make the stick so he had control over it and would not share the know-how, he still makes everyone more wealthy.

Let's assume this scenario is true, and one man controls the stick technology. He agrees to make everyone a stick, but they must give him 90% of the extra production. All the men still have more berries in 10 hours than they did before (or can make the same berries in less time), and the one stick making man has more berries than he can eat. Those extra berries are nothing unless the other men forgo collecting their total daily berry needs and do something else for the stick inventor. Maybe he wants them to rub his feet. The men would rather pick berries than rub his feet. Unless he trades 5 hours of berriesbecause they didn't all get more wealthy at exactly the same way and same amount, the Left doesn't think its fair. It is fair, the guy who was smart enough to invent the berry stick got the most wealthy, but even though he made everyone more wealthy through his invention, it is still not good enough for the Left.

The Left claims they are for liberty because some men will want what the stick inventor has. The end result is they have stopped people from making the sticks because they actually stole the stick makers liberty or right to his own production, property and body. Wealth is not a zero sum gain. In real world economics, the rich make others richer. Individual liberty is the key to this and the free market system is the means. Relatively speaking, the poor in the United States are far wealthier than other nations. This is not due to socialists policies of stealing the liberty from the rich. It is due to the same phenomenon that is described on berry island. When government regulation is applied to attempt to make free market better, it always widens the gap between the rich and poor. As on Berry island, in a total free market economy the wealth will be disperse and unleveled. The unleveled amount gets elevated by regulation which disturbs market price signals. (For more info, read Austrian economics). Regulation is always a removal of some persons liberty usually tipping the advantage to the already wealthy.

I am a Liberal. I am for individual liberty. It is the individual that invents the technology and capital that increase our wealth, not the collective. When ever you increase liberty for the collective, you must by definition, remove liberty for the individual. The opposite is not true. Increasing the liberty of the individual does not reduce liberty for the collective. It increases it as well. Once you have accepted this fact, you can move on to being a true LIBERAL.

To Achieve Utopia Is To Achieve Serfdom

As a Christian, I remember having my first conversation with a Jehovah's Witness. We talked for about an hour. We talked about God, Jesus, how one receives salvation and all of the things a good christian would talk about. The strange thing was that after much agreement with everything I had to say, I was left sitting there wondering what was wrong. How could a Jehovah's Witness agree with everything I had said about the Person and work of Jesus Christ? While I was sitting there scratching my head, it was the Jehovah's Witness who began to explain to me the problem I was having. He said, "When you said Jesus is God, you meant the Trinitarian God...right?"

To which I responded, "Of course." I mean seriously, what else is there? There's only one God. Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Holy Spirit is God. It seemed to me a no brainer. But then he began to explain to me that the Jehovah's witness believes in radically different definitions but uses the exact same terminology.

The second chapter of Hayek's Road To Serfdom, The Great Utopia, also scales the language barrier. Some time back on my other blog I was informed about my ignorance that communism and socialism and Nazism are all very different systems, and that I was a fool for assuming they were all linked together somehow. But as Hayek observes,

Lest this be doubted by people misled by official propaganda from either side, let me quote one more statement from an authority that ought not to be suspect. In an article under the significant title of "The Rediscovery of Liberalism," Professor Eduard Heimann, one of the leaders of German religious socialism, writes: "Hitlerism proclaims itslef as both true democracy and true socialism, and the terrible truth is that there is a grain of truth for such claims--an infinitesimal grain, to be sure, but at any rate enough to serve as a basis for such fantastic distortions."

It becomes clear in this chapter that the supposed intellectual elite are so blinded by their desires for a Utopia on earth, that they miss the very consequences of their actions. In fact, the chapter starts by quoting Holderlin.

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.

One of the first steps Hayek notes is that democracy and socialism both contend to be about equality. He quotes Alexis de Tocqueville,

"Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom," he said in 1848; "socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socilaism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

The more I read this book, the more relevant it is for Americans today. If there is any word that is bandied about in our society, it is "equality". Not only does the term "equality" suffer equivocation, but "freedom" suffers as well. He states a couple of paragraphs later,

The subtle change in meaning to which the word "freedom" was subjected in order that this argument should sound plausible is important. To the great apostles of political freedom the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a superior to whom he was attached.

Now notice the change.

The new freedom promised, however, was to be freedom from necessity, release from compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us, although for some very much more than for others. Before man could be truly free, the "despotism of physical want" had to be broken, the "restraints of the economic system" relaxed.

But this deceptive propaganda of using terms in such a way led Hayek to see that,

"this would only heighten the tragedy if it should prove that what was promised to us as the Road To Freedom was in fact the high Road To Servitude."

Hayek then goes on to demonstrate that although communism and Marxism and Nazism and socialism are all different theories, their common bond is so strong the links between them can not easily be overlooked. As Hayek refers to F.A. Voigt,

Similarly a British writer after many years of close observation of developments in Europe as a foreign correspondent, concludes that "Marxism has led to Fascism and National Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism."

And he states a historical observation.

And what is true of leaders is even more true of the rank and file of the movement. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was generally known in Germany, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties.

And we most certainly see this today in our own colleges and universities when it comes to skulls full of mush buying this garbage.

Many a university teacher during the 1930s has seen English and American students return from the Continent uncertain whether they were communists or Nazis and certain only that they hated Western liberal civilization.

So the one great enemy they all have in common is [classical] liberalism.

To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common and whom they could not hope to convince, is the liberal of the old type.

In conclusion, it should be obvious that much of our public school system supports the radical Left. How many of our kids go off to college and return with the "blame America" mentality. How the evils of capitalism [which is really cronyism] and liberty have caused the evils of this world. Never is the Marxist seen as the radical. Never is the propaganda of the Left seen for what it is.

May we as a nation see the true issues at hand. We are on a road. Although many claim it is the road to freedom. History is clear. Utopias cannot be achieved. While standing and proclaiming "equality and freedom!", Serfdom is at hand.

Just Say Yes

In this post I am going to defend the side of a highly controversial issue that the Libertarian takes. That is, the legalization of drugs. Yes and that means all drugs, Heroine, Crack Cocaine, you name it. On the surface and to someone that perhaps has not thought this logically through, this may sound outrageous. I know it did to me at one time. Once a logical case is built to support the idea, you may still disagree, but hopefully I will prove that it is you who is not logical.

Let me start with the every day hypocrisy that is in our law that almost all Americans citizens agree with and thus are indeed hippocrates themselves. Ask yourself, should alcohol be legal? Before you dismiss this as "beer, booze and wine are completely different", explain why that is? What is different about alcohol that makes it any safer, better, less damaging to society, needed in any way, exceptional from other drugs, more accepted, and finally more legal?

Is alcohol safer than any hard drug like Coke or heroine? Well since it kills far more people every year, I think that's pretty easy to answer. Does it destroy families? Yes! Does it cause addiction? Yes! Does it cause fatalities? Yes! Can you overdose? Yes! Is there any question you could ask about other drugs that would separate them from alcohol? The simple answer is NO. It is in every way just as dangerous as any hard drug out there. If not, then more so. So why then is it legal?

This question was once asked by our all knowing all powerful government. And in attempts to remove it from our society, we went through Prohibition. Prohibition was an all out catastrophe. It created more crime than it could have possibly hoped to remove. When there is a demand for a product, government always fails to remove that demand. Regardless of what deterrent, law or regulation is enacted.

My point here isn't to show you that alcohol is bad. I think everyone knows the dangers and problems that come with alcohol. So why is it tolerated?, because the alternate is worse. Prohibition proved it. Prohibition was one of the principal factors that brought about the American mafia. Durgs are still under prohibition, and that effect in the drug world is identicle to the alcohol world. Exactly the same. The only diefference is peoples general perception of drugs vs thier general perception of alcohol.

The logic I really want people to accept is the concept of freedom. Whether alcohol is bad for you or not is really besides the point. Prohibition should have never been tried. It is not the states job to protect you from yourself. This will always lead to a form a tyranny. In some ways this Tyranny is worse, because it hides in the form of safety or protecting you. The question that you need to answer is- do you need the state to protect you from yourself? Perhaps you think "of course not, but others do" (think of the absurdity of that statement and the elitism it displays). Freedom is not just about being free to choose good things. You dont get freedom as long as you choose healthy apples. Freedom is the ability to go against what others think you should. if we all agreed what was good, why would we need freedom? Its about the freedom to do anything you want so long as you don't infringe on someone else's freedom. If you want to drink yourself to death, you should have the freedom to do so. If you view this as desireable, then you should have the freedom to do it! If freedom meant always choosing what the government deems as the good thing to do, you wouldnt need it. The freedoms that Americans have lost in the name of safety and protection are now bordering Serfdom. Hows your trip to the airport? All in the name of safety people must view you nude and touch any body part they want. The police can give you a fine for not buckling your seat belt. All in the name of safety. Who are you hurting when you don't buckle your seat belt? Think of the logic here. A cop pulls you over and hands you a ticket because you put yourself at higher risk. You didn't put him at risk. You didn't put any other driver at risk. You did absolutely nothing morally wrong, yet because you opted not to increase your chances of safety during an accident, he can make you pay money. That is tyranny, not freedom! To have freedom you must have the ability to choose what others deem wrong (as long as it doesnt hurt others, because then your infringing on their freedom) There are thousands and thousands of these rules. You are experiencing tyranny from your government. But because they say they are doing it for you and your well being, you let it happen. If you think a free society means always picking what is the best thing for you, then you need a lesson in freedom. Freedom means doing what you want (without hurting others), that is it! There is no freedom disclaimer that says in a free society you must pick the best choice, it just means you make the choice for you, and nothing more.

So back to drugs, the reason I talked about the hypocrisy of alcohol is because everything that is true for alcohol is also true for any drug. You may think that drugs should be illegal because people on drugs can and will hurt other people. My argument is that there may be some small truth to this, but it is nothing compared to the amount of hurt to other people that is done by making it illegal. The "War On Drugs", has been an utter failure. The black market and crime that is created by illegal drugs is far worse than any issue with having legal drugs. The worst part of it all is that the war on drugs and the fact that drugs are illegal not only creates a whole new industry of crime that would otherwise cease to exist, it does absolutely nothing to deter its usage. The war on drugs has had the identicle effect that prohibition had. Exactly the same!

Make drugs legal and you have people using drugs and whatever problems come with it.

Make drugs illegal and you have people using drugs and whatever problems come with it, and in addition you have a massive industry of crime to support it (this has cause more harm to people than any amount of drug use possibly could).

Does the war on crime have its intended affect? Perhaps you think - sure its an utter failure, it just hasn't done it correctly yet. I ask you to consider the following as a true statement:

If a product has a demand, it is impossible for government to remove it.

Meaning, there is no such thing as a government waged war on crime that is successful. I have a bit of evidence to back up that claim. Since we have been at it for 30+ years in the U.S. and almost every country in the world has done the exact same thing with the exact same results. Not one country has lessened its citizens drug use. Yes different counties have different levels of drug use. None of them have anything to do with the law and any war on drugs.

Case in point. In Amsterdam, less than 5% of school aged children has tried Pot. In the U.S. its almost 20%. Yes Amsterdam has more drug use than other countries (and it is actually very close in per capita) but much of that is due to people going there from other countries to experience Pot legally. But this detracts from my point. It doesnt matter if legalizing drugs does increase the actual use, being free doesnt mean the government forces you to do what is right or correct by gun point. Being free means you do what you want and its your personal responsibility to figure out what is best for you, not the governments.

There is so much to write on this subject that shows the complete lack of governments ability to control drug use. All the while this effort always has the actual effect of hurting its own citizens by creating a market of crime. The money that is wasted is absolutely crazy. I beg you to consider this a fact. It is wasted money! It cant be done! We cannot remove drugs from people who want them. We can only make them do two wrongs instead of one. Instead of it just being a bad idea to use drugs, now we have made them criminals too. What did any drug user do that is actually criminal? They put drugs in their own body. Its no different then deciding to leave your seat belt off becuase you dont want to wear it, Its none of your business that someone else makes a poor decision. In the attempt to save that person, we made them into a criminal too. Great job government!

If you think alcohol should be legal but drugs should not, then you are a hyippocrate and contradict yourself. Otherwise, you have the burden to explain why the two are different.

Consider the current health care crisis. what would it mean if anyone could get access to any drug they wanted without the consent of a doctor? Before you point out all the obvious negatives that most people think of. Think of what it would mean to the person that cant afford a doctor and the medicine, but could afford one. I could write on this one point for an hour, but will cut this one short for now.

Road To Serfdom

My brother and I had a recent discussion on Facebook about politics and economics with a good friend of mine...well mostly my brother had the discussion. He is the smarter one. What was interesting is how my more "liberal" friend claimed to be neutral about ideology and was just a middle of the road pragmatist. Of course I challenged my friend about his presuppositions to which he has never responded. Such is the attitude of the Political Left. Their worldview simply cannot be challenged.

At my brother's request, I am attempting to work my way through The Road To Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. What I really appreciate is the author's preface to the original editions. In the very first paragraph he wrote:

...the essential point remains that all I have to say is derived from certain ultimate values. I hope I have adequately  discharged in the book itself a second and no less important duty: to make it clear beyond doubt what these values are on which the whole argument depends.

 It is quite refreshing to read an author that grasps this important facet of any argument. Hopefully I will have some time to interact and/or make comments about this book as I read it.