Centralized Power Is the Answer?

Yesterday on my Facebook, I linked to an article by William Grigg about how Tennessee officers are using legal tactics in order to confiscate money from citizens without any charges of wrong doing along Highway 40. I then made a comment about how I just watched the 80s movie, Rambo, in which a local Police Chief uses his authority in a way that was also abusive.

Now a good friend of mine responded initially (although I think he may be rethinking this) by stating,

Rambo, isn't that proof that small town governments are even more corrupt? Kinda like this small town police officer? Your proving my point! Aren't u glad the Feds busted him? No, you want no outside help, no one to police the small town guys. Leave us alone!! You can't make this stuff up.

Now although he may be walking this back some, please notice the assumption that the average state educated and propagandize American citizen immediately responds. He appeals to a higher governmental authority! As if Rambo didn't already have enough trouble. Now let's centralize power even more.

Now I want to be clear. We all know about the tyranny of local communities. I remember reading one Supreme Court decision in which they made the same observation. But even the High Court didn't think that meant the Federal government should trump local governments in every way. As Jeffery Hebener states in his article,

Not only did small states constrain each one's predation by the competitive process among them, but within each realm the struggle for supremacy came to center around the assertion of rights. Representative bodies, religious communities, chartered towns, universities, etc., each claiming its rights, limited the power of the king. Eventually, private property rights came to be defined more in line with the nature of human persons and human action, leading to further gains in prosperity and liberty. Innovations in technology, organization, and institutions were permitted by right, giving rise to the distinctive features of capitalism: capital markets, joint stock companies, entrepreneurial activities, capital accumulation, and so on.[11]

Yet my point is that today, most people have some kind of altruistic view of government. The more centralized it is, the better. Yet this is simply not true as has been demonstrated by libertarians and the article cited above. To put it simply, centralization does not improve economies or the arts or technology among other things, including the police!

In other words, why is granting a monopoly on centralized tyranny better? If one watches the movie, Rambo, I fail to see how the bigger government helped Rambo out? If you recall, the military shot a bazooka like bomb at him. Yet my friend later seems to see a problem that the movie asks, when he wrote,

If your local police is corrupt, and you hate central planning, who arrests the corrupt police?

An accusation brought to the State police and the chief that Rambo was being abused was responded by the character, Sheriff Teasle. Basically, he states if something bad is happening among his men, then the prisoner goes to him and the Sheriff fixes the problem. Now think about that. The very sheriff that arrested Rambo and gave him over to his underlings is now the one who wants the monopoly on authority. However, many today wish for an even more powerful and centralized monopolistic government to have this power. And pray tell me, who has authority over them? A world court?


To even ask these questions is anathema to a people that have been indoctrinated on centralized power/government. Yet it was not that long ago that the very Framers of our Constitution believed in nullification in order to protect itself from an ever growing centralized power as Tom Woods more than demonstrates here.

So as even my friend seems to see, the police that stole the thousands of dollars apart from any charges or trial, based squarely in a made up/artificial war on drugs [a war that is never meant to be won BTW] is bogus on some level.


So in conclusion, appealing to higher and more centralized governments as being the answer to small town tyrants is an answer that gives bigger governments even more monopolistic power. How this solves any dilemma can only be found in the modern mind.

The Federal Reserve Explained

There are a whole bunch of these kinds of videos that explain what the Federal Reserve is and how we are getting ripped off.

Why the Chatter?

Obama says the constitution is a charter of negative liberties. That it only says what the government can't do and says nothing about what the government must do for the people!

He is absolutely right!

The founders believed a basic understanding about government that most today do not understand. Government does not have the ability to give you anything. It has the ability to give you something it steals from others, but for the simple fact it doesn't produce, it cannot give. So in order to do anything, it must engage in some form of tyranny. They understood this and created a document of limitations.

Why this is such a topic of debate today (following the constitution) I am a bit perplexed. Since almost everything the federal government does today is unconstitutional, why all the chatter?

They have already passed social security, dept of education, dept of agriculture, FDA, and on and on, which is all forbidden by the constitution! So why do people stand up and say "this health care bill is unconstitutional"?

This is where republicans ignore all the unconstitutional bills they passed and pretend they are the defenders of the constitution.

 by Jim Fisher

Division of Labor

Do cheap goods from China hurt our economy?

Do Japanese cars with higher quality and lower cost hurt our economy?

Is Detroit dead because of foreign auto makers?

The answer is no ! This is a difficult concept to explain. It's called the "division of labor" and it's the real reason Americans are rich in comparison to many countries. Let me explain it.

Pretend for a moment there were two different technologies for building cars. The first is the way you know, Detroit builds them in their plants. The second is farmers from Kansas put X amount of grain onto a boat and send it to a magical island called Japan.

On this island the X amount of grain magically turns into a car and returns to Kansas. So the farmer actually makes cars by growing grain (just pretend with me).

Now let's say 1 auto worker in Detroit can build 1 car in 1 day. In Kansas, 1 farmer can produce enough grain (2X) in 1 day to make 2 cars. Which process would be be smarter to use? Which process would make Americans more wealthy?

The fact that we get a TV from China that takes less of your labor to buy makes you able to buy more scarce goods with your same money. Should you hope to spend your same money to get less goods?

You say- but what about the jobs? They are stealing our jobs.

This is a wives tale. We can all work and produce. Since the car sales do not decrease, the auto producer from Detroit is assimilated to other industries. Yes, that auto worker may be making less money, but it is at the expense of making all Americans (including himself) richer by being able to spend less income on the same goods.

So while a few people must find other jobs (maybe with less income, maybe not), all Americans are richer because they can spend less money on the same car. So there is now a car in your driveway and more money in your pocket.

The fact that it comes from Japan or China is irrelevant.

The free market has no borders when it comes to the division of labor (letting who can make something the most efficiently make it). Borders do not matter.

Do you ever say- don't buy from outside Massachusetts?

Why stop there? Wouldn't you be better off not buying anything from anyone outside your family? Only purchase from your family members!

You can see how absurd this is, because if you insisted, you would only buy a TV from your Uncle, yes you would employ your uncle but it would likely take him a year to make it and cost you $100,000.00

The division of labor is how the free market makes us all rich. Whoever figures out how to make something cheaper ends up making everyone more wealthy. Because the rest of us get more for less.

Where someone draws borders, it has nothing to do with economics.

--Written by Jim Fisher

What Will They Do With Your Money?

So what the hell do you think they're gonna do!

Most of my friends on Face Book are around my age. Our generation has heard for most of our lives that we will never see our Social Security money. We have accepted this as a truth. We grew up and became part of the working force with the full understanding that we must take care of our own retirement.

The business's we work for knew this too and competed for our talent by offering us 401K plans etc..

So we work our whole lives doing the right thing. Staying within our budget and scraping a little away for the years we can no longer work. While simultaneously the government did exactly what our fathers warned us it would. It kept spending more than it took in, despite taking in more of our money each year.

Now the reality is here. They have had to conduct silly fake "pretend cuts" to keep the government from shutting down, but in actuality just expanding their massive debt.

We all know this is real, in just a short 5 to 15 years they will be insolvent. They WILL NOT be able send out the Social Security checks and Medicare payments.

And this is not my fantasy. This is not the voice of the radical Libertarian Jim Fisher. This is true, and you know it.

So what the hell do you think they're gonna do?

When the government is broke and can't pay anyone's S.S. while the rest of us have our life savings sitting there in 401K plans?

There are Hundreds of billions sitting with our investment firms, and you think they will just stop being the controller of people's retirement? They will leave your money alone and just quietly stop paying social security?

Perhaps your thinking we just need to switch back to Republican and Mitt Romney will get things under control? The last Republican voted in Medicare part D, the largest increase in the history of government expenditure!

Maybe it's time for a different answer.

It's not left, it's not right, it's America's 3rd way!

Libertarianism!

Obama, Ms. Fluke and joe the plumber

A reporter asked the President about Rush's comments about Ms. Fluke. Here is Obama's response.

Y'know, I'm not gonna comment on what sponsors decide to do. I'm not gonna comment on, uhh, uhhh, either the economics or the politics of it. Uh, I don't know what's in Rush Limbaugh's heart so I'm not gonna comment, uhhh, uh, on the sincerity of his apology. Uh, what I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree, uhh, that the remarks that were made, uhh, don't have any place in the public discourse. And, you know, the reason I called Ms. Fluke is because, uh, I thought about Malia and Sasha. And one of the things I want them to do, uh, as they get older is to engage in issues they care about. Even ones I may not agree with them on, I want them to be able t'speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way, and I don't want them attacked or called horrible names because, uh, they're being good citizens. And I wanted, uhh, Sandra to know that -- that I thought her parents should be proud of her. Uh, and that we want t'send a message to all our young people that bein' part of a democracy involves argument and disagreements and, uh, debate. And we want you to be engaged, and there's a way to do it, uh, that doesn't, uhh, involve you being, uhh, demeaned and insulted, particularly when you're a private citizen.

This sounds just wonderful. Yet where was the President's outrage when his dogs went after a real private citizen who was really minding his own business, Joe the Plumber?

Well here is another regular guy's thoughts.

Obama Bets On Pond Scum

President Obama says drilling for oil is a worn out idea.

You can bet that since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plan for two dollar gas. And I'll save you the suspense. Step one is to drill and step two is to drill. And then step three is to keep drilling. We heard the same line in 2007 when I was running for president. We hear the same thing every year. We've heard the same thing for 30 years. Well, the American people aren't stupid. They know that's not a plan.

So drilling for the tons of oil that lies beneath us is a worn out idea. Yet, he has no problem with claiming other technologies like...dare I say this..."Pond Scum" as a real option?

We're making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that's actually made from a plant-like substance, algae. You got a bunch of algae out here, right? If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, well, we'll be doing all right.

Really? This is it? This is the best the President has to offer? A technology that doesn't even exist yet, at least not in a viable format.

Now how is this guy not thought of as complete idiot? Why would any thinking American really believe this charlatan? Only a cult-follower would believe such tripe.

The irony is that the Free-market would bring down the price of oil. It is because of the tyrannical/fascist government of both the Left and the Right that oil has become an expensive commodity.