While this is no shocker to those of us who know government is a completely ineffective, you would think this would make the most ardent defenders of the state question how effective government is.

About half of the more than 4,000 security cameras installed along New York City’s subways are not working.

At the same time, the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority has cut the number of weekend police patrols on major bridges and tunnels.

Critics say the non-working cameras are a blind spot in the crime and terrorism safety net for the nation’s largest city.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that the MTA needs more funding. But he says Albany lawmakers turned down a plan that would’ve eliminated most of the agency’s problems.

MTA officials say safety of riders is the top priority. They point out that about half of the cameras do work and about 900 more will work by June.

The problem of missing video came to light after two men were stabbed to death on the subway — and there was no camera installed in the station to catch an image of the killer. Darnell Morel and Ricardo Williams, both 24, were killed in a fight that started around 5 a.m. Sunday at the Christopher Street station, about four miles from the World Trade Center site.

via The Associated Press: Insecurity cams? About half in NYC don’t work.

Can you image a private security company pointing out, as if this is proof of their good work, that half of their cameras “do work”? Luckily for us, with private business, we abolish them by not using their services. With government, we are stuck with them. They have the guns.

Can’t wait till these morons run all of health care. It should be interesting being rushed into an emergency room. Your health care will be like playing a game. Do you get lucky and get put into the room with working equipment, or do you go to the room with the broken down equipment? Who knows! Maybe they can turn this into a reality show, so the government dependents can feel good about the disasterous system. I can hear it now. “I’m having a heart attack. I’m going to be on TV! “

Over the weekend, I was reading some of the Federalist Papers. In particular, I was reading Madison’s Federalist Paper XXXIX, which discusses whether the proposed Constitution would create a national government, basically a democracy where the majority rules, or a federal government, where the government in broken down into a “confederacy of sovereign States”. He begins by discussing whether the proposed government is a republican government.

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.

After highlighting how many other nations claimed to be republics, while at the same time having all or parts of their government ruling over the people without the people bestowing those powers unto them, Madison explains that the Constitution is not just claiming to be a republic in words but in action.

If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character.

So, how are we stacking up as a republic these days? Do we have people administering the offices for a limited period of time and good behavior? Does Ted Kennedy or Robert Byrd ring a bell as to if our officials serve for limited time periods and good behavior? Madison explains what happens when you do not have time limits on those serving, when he says it “would be degraded from the republican character”, meaning those serving would no longer represent the people.

Also, does our government get it’s powers from the “great body of society” or from “inconsiderable proportions, or a favored class”? Between Wall Street and the enslaved entitlement recipients, I’d say it now gets it’s powers from the latter. What does Madison say that leads to? If it’s the latter “a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.” Sounds about right to me. While our government still claims to be a republic, it does not represent the people. It now has structured privileged classes that do not look out for the “great body of society” but enslaves a large enough portion to maintain the appearance of a republic, while at the same time favoring those who grease the palms of elected officials.

Are the neocons now starting to see the error of their ways? Do they realize that you cannot give up liberty for security, for as Franklin told us, you’ll have neither? Here is a post from Hot Air, where it seems like they are actually catching on.

This should prove an interesting conundrum for those who supported the NSA’s warrantless terrorist-surveillance program. The FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been accessing cell-phone tracking data, possible with the newer generations of GPS-embedded smart phones, in order to solve regular crimes as well as in the national-security arena, using a low bar for cause on warrants. Does this constitute an intelligent leverage of new technology, or a danger to civil liberties?

Of course it’s a threat to civil liberties. If the government turns tyrannical, well more tyrannical than it is, and if we condone this or pass laws like say the Patriot Act to give the government the power they claim to need, then they can use those powers to squash any group of citizens who do not like what the government has become. While you may be able to accept handing some powers to the government when you think it’s your side running the government, “your side” is not always going to be in power. This is the fundamental reason for Franklin’s famous quote. The Hot Air post goes on to quote an article from Newsweek.

Amid all the furor over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt was brewing over another type of federal snooping that was getting no public attention at all. Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers’ cell phones—sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they needed the records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials. But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors “were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device,” said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. “And I started asking the U.S. Attorney’s Office, ‘What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?’ ”

The Justice Department doesn’t keep statistics on requests for cell-phone data, according to the spokeswoman. So it’s hard to gauge just how often these records are retrieved. But Al Gidari, a telecommunications lawyer who represents several wireless providers, tells NEWSWEEK that the companies are now getting “thousands of these requests per month,” and the amount has grown “exponentially” over the past few years. Sprint Nextel has even set up a dedicated Web site so that law-enforcement agents can access the records from their desks—a fact divulged by the company’s “manager of electronic surveillance” at a private Washington security conference last October. “The tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement,” said the Sprint executive, according to a tape made by a privacy activist who sneaked into the event. (A Sprint spokesman acknowledged the company has created the Web “portal” but says that law-enforcement agents must be “authenticated” before they are given passwords to log on, and even then still must provide valid court orders for all nonemergency requests.)

Again, Franklin’s warning comes to mind. Neocons, including myself at the time, thought the warrantless wiretapping was needed. How could Bush track those evil terrorists without it? Well, what happens once you give that power to the government for terrorists? Shouldn’t they use it on child molestors? I mean is there any bigger group of terrorists than child molestors? Heck, what about murderers? How about drug dealers, bank robbers, oh and what about that rich ponzi scheme guy? No, not the government. I’m talking about Bernie Madoff. Shouldn’t we be able to track him? How many lives did he ruin? As you can see, this never ends. Before you know it, to government is tracking you down for your outstanding speeding tickets.

Most of us would understand that law-enforcement agencies have a need occasionally to track a suspect in a criminal matter and certainly for the FBI in counterterrorist operations (give up those liberties for the boogiemen).  However, according to this Newsweek report, the Obama administration and other agencies are using a particularly weak type of claim in order to make thousands of requests a month, most of which have nothing to do with national security:

The grounds for such requests, says Smith, were often flimsy: almost all were being submitted as “2703(d)” orders—a reference to an obscure provision of a 1986 law called the Stored Communications Act, in which prosecutors only need to assert that records are “relevant” to an ongoing criminal investigation. That’s the lowest possible standard in federal criminal law, and one that, as a practical matter, magistrates can’t really verify. …

A potentially more sinister request came from some Michigan cops who, purportedly concerned about a possible “riot,” pressed another telecom for information on all the cell phones that were congregating in an area where a labor-union protest was expected. “We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of abuse on this,” says Gidari.

I’m no fan of labor-union activism, but Americans have a right to peaceably assemble for political purposes without the government conducting covert surveillance.  Just as with the NSA’s program, this is a very powerful tool that law enforcement can and should use — but for legitimate and very limited purposes.   This requires a much higher standard for warrants on law enforcement investigations than what is described in this article.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Hmmm: Feds, local law enforcement accessing cell phone tracking “thousands of times a month”.

What a minute. Are you telling me the government was using these laws to track American citizens, who did nothing illegal? No way! Not our government. Not the American government. This is the home of the free and the land of the brave, right? Are you getting the point yet? Governments do not obey rules, and they don’t sit back and say, “Well, the people really meant to give us this power to protect them from overseas boogiemen. We can’t really use it on Americans themselves.” No, they will use every means necessary against their own people to maintain and grow their power. Do not be fooled by their stated intentions of protecting us. All tyrants claim to be looking out for and protecting their people. Do you think for one second Chavez doesn’t claim to be looking out for the Venezuelan people? Of course he does. All governments are the same. They all want to grow and control every aspect of the economy, society, etc. Under Bush it was warrantless wiretaps, and now under Obama it’s ObamaCare, Net Neutrality and Financial reform.

Ok, gotta go. I should have yanked the battery out of my cell phone before starting this blog.

The Democrats, who claim to be the party of the little guy, sure do a lot of the walking and talking for the Wall Street bankers. Just one instance is Chris Dodd’s financial reform bill.

Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., raised ’serious concerns’ about a provision in the financial reform bill, released this week by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), that seems to allow the Fed to rescue Wall Street firms if they play a critical role in the financial markets.

WSJ: “We do have serious concerns about other sections of the Senate draft which seem to allow the potential for backdoor bailouts through the Federal Reserve Board’s 13(3) emergency authority,” she told a conference of community bankers, hosted by the Independent Community Bankers Association (the Fed used its authority under Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to bail out AIG, injecting over $180 bln).

U.S. policy makers need to end the concept of “too big to fail, ” she added.

In response to Bair’s concerns, who has emerged as the only voice for restoring market discipline and eliminate the market’s perception that some firms are too big to fail, spokeswoman for Mr. Dodd said that that provision will be removed in the manager’s amendment, as the Senate Banking Committee debates the draft bill.

via Dodd Bill Allows Wall Street Firms for ‘Backdoor Bailouts’.

Mr. Dodd’s response? “Oh crap, busted. How did that get in there. Nothing to see here. This is just a misprint to be removed by the manager’s amendment during the debate on the regulatory rigmarole, so you see all is good.” What the hell did he just say? It’s like watching the man on the street corner with his three cups and a ball conning people out of their money who think they can choose the cup with the ball under it.

Luckily for us, Dodd will not be there much longer. Let’s just hope Connecticut sends Peter Schiff to replace him. Peter will do his best to show us all the con.

John Stossel had a great episode last week on government licensed professions. Here is a short segment from the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4T1YeG_qiE

OK, so the typical statist argument goes, “Do you want your butcher to perform surgery on you?”. Well, maybe. It depends. How many successful operations has he performed in the past? What’s his success rate? How does that compare to his competitor or a certified doctor? This argument that they lay out assumes that we are all driveling idiots, and the government in it’s infinite wisdom is here to protect us. Without the state, we’d hand a knife over to anyone to cut us open.

Professions without government licensing would operate no different than they do with licensing, except they’d have more competition and waste less time, money and energy on stupid government regulations. Ultimately, that would lead to better prices for consumers and more options.

So, what do you do now when you look for say a licensed real estate agent? Do you just go up to some stranger and say “Here’s my keys. Go sell my house.” Of course not, you ask around to people you trust asking who they recommend. Then you may look online to see if they have reviews. A perfect example is Angieslist. I just had my carpets cleaned. Did I just grab a phone book and call a random number to clean my carpets? No, I checked Angieslist, read reviews, and called for a price from those who had the best reviews. This would be no different with any profession, including doctors.

The truth is professions do like to keep out competitors. They don’t want you having the freedom to ask your neighbor who wired up his house himself to help you wire up yours. You must be forced into calling a licensed electrician. Then you must call an inspector to certify your job. Why can’t you use your neighbor? After all, it’s a free country right? Why can’t you call an inspector only if you want to make sure the electrician did his job right. This should be voluntary. Yes, you may sell your house, but the buyer should then pay an inspector to make sure they aren’t buying  a house with electrical problems. This too should be voluntary.

Now, I have nothing against voluntary associations and certifications. If doctors, attorneys or electricians what to set themselves apart from their competition, I have no problem with them forming an association and certifications. Those tell the consumer that they have gone through more training, and they are approved by the association. This is good information, but it should be voluntary. I should be able to choose between someone not a member of the association, who may not have had all the rigorous training but may be cheaper, or the certified member of an association, who I know has gone through a specific training program. I work in computers and this is how it works in our field. I don’t need to be a licensed IT consultant, but if I want to separate myself and increase my opportunities of employment, I go through certain certifications for my area of expertise. This tells potential employers that I’ve gone through certain training and was able to pass the tests that go with it. I’ve demonstrated a certain amount of knowledge. This should be the same of all professions.

The truth is there is not need for licensing. It’s just another way for governments to take you freedom and to prevent competition.

In part one of this post, I talked about how the government tells us they have to steal, kill and abuse us, because we are too selfish to take care of each other without being forced to. They must protect us from each other, and we need to trust them to wield a monopoly on force in order to have a civilized society. But is this true?  Well, in this part, I’d like to touch on some of the arguments I get from the pro-government crowd.

…Government is there to make sure there is a level playing field.

Hmmm, is this why we give subsidies to failing businesses? Is it unfair that one company might have figured out a way to make a better, cheaper widget, and in doing so is putting it’s competition out of business? Does it make sense to prop up the failing business? Does it make sense to take the money from the workers and the producers in society, who would use their money to buy other products from companies who also figured out how to make better and cheaper products, which ultimately improves all our lives, because we get more and more for less, and give that money to companies who can’t produce what we demand at the prices we demand? Does this keep a level playing field by forcing workers to hand money to failing businesses through subsidies, who ultimately don’t even provide them a product for that money?

This must be why the government gave all our tax money to Wall Street bankers. They couldn’t have a profitable company on Wall Street handing out bonuses, while the failing businesses could not. Maybe this is why they stuck a gun to the responsible bankers’ heads and told them they will take TARP money or else. They just wanted to make sure their buddies, who were completely irresponsible, didn’t have to play on the unlevel playing field that they themselves created.

Ok, Ok. This must be why they take property from the average Joe, who works his whole life for “The American Dream” of owning his own home, so they can hand it off to private developers. Remember the Kelo decision? This is where your property can be stolen from you if the government decides to give it to someone who creates more taxes. Oh, but what happened there. The private developer backed out of the deal. The homeowner had her home taken at gun point, and now the land sits vacant. Hey, just keeping a level playing field.

The truth is government is all about picking winners and losers. They aren’t about keeping a level playing field.

…Government protects us from monopolies.

OK, this is the best. We all know monopolies are just horrible right. So what’s the fix? Give the government a monopoly on the use of force. Give them a monopoly on educating our kids. Give them a monopoly on theft. I know, I know. They do it all for us.

So we constantly hear monopolies would exist if government didn’t regulate against monopolies, but I have a hard time coming up with real examples where this happens. Of course, when you point out that monopolies can’t exist without government backing, proponents of government say “well, that’s because of antitrust laws”. This just isn’t so. Trying to create a monopoly is extremely inefficient, and ultimately a bad monopoly could not last. While a company may be able to corner a market temporarily, they could not hold on to it. If they were charging too much, a competitor would see the excessive profits and decide to get into the business. Yes, they could buy up the smaller business, but that would just signal to others that they too can make money by starting a competing business and being bought up. Ultimately, this buying up of more efficient competitors to maintain an inefficient monopoly, would lead to the monopolies collapse. The only way you could have an inefficient monopoly for the long term is if it was given exclusive rights to some public resource, such as phone lines, land, subsidies, etc, which is why you can only have a monopoly when the government backs you. Think about it. Let’s say Microsoft really was a monopoly. If you haven’t noticed they are getting their butts kicked by Google. Anyway, so they are a monopoly. How can they maintain a monopoly without government? The only way they could is to produce a better product. They cannot force people to buy their product.

What was the big issue with Microsoft? Netscape claimed Microsoft was using its monopoly to stifle other web browsers. Ok, but how was the consumer harmed? The consumer got a free web browser with their computer that came with Microsoft Windows, which made them decide against downloading Netscape. So really, what Microsoft had was a more efficient distribution system that they developed with the wide adoption of their operating system. Because Netscape had a less efficient distribution system for their web browser, they were getting clobbered. Does that mean Microsoft was being monopolistic, or were they just being more efficient? Has Microsoft put competitors out of business and jacked up prices on Internet Explorer? I’m pretty sure it’s still free.

Even more proof that Microsoft is not a monopoly (and never was) is Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari. People are now downloading other browsers, because they believe Microsoft’s product isn’t up to where it should be. The cost of downloading another program and installing it is now more valued than it was when Netscape was the main competitor. These competitors have figured out a way to compete and be efficient enough to eat away at Microsoft’s market share, and consumers are the ones benefiting.

Now if you want to see the horror of real coercive monopolies, just look at our public education system, where you are forced into using the monopoly. You have to pay whether you want to use it or not. If you try to send your child to a private school, the private school still has to meet the government mandated curriculum. What we get from this monopoly is nothing but ever decreasing results.

…Government protects the children.

This has to be one of the biggest lies out there. Government could careless about your children. They only want to make them mindless zombies, so they are easier to enslave.

Look at the biggest role the government has in your child’s life, which is public schooling, and you’ll see the abuse the government lays on your child. They are trapped in a prison all day long and brainwashed by material that special interest groups want to cram down their throats. They are ushered through grade after grade many times without any progress. Oh, and you better hope your child isn’t a thinker. God forbid your child questions anything taught in class. They’ll be labeled a delinquent, smart alec or a trouble maker. We wouldn’t want any of the other children questioning what’s being taught, so little Junior better just sit there and repeat, “The Constitution is a living document. Government is there to protect us. Obama is a great president, ah huh, ah huh, ah huh.”

Also, with childhood obesity on the rise, what does the all caring government do? Well, they fill your child’s lunch tray up with fatty and sugary foods. Don’t worry though. When your child is all wound up from the sugar, they’ll tell you your child is too hyper and needs to be medicated. While they are forcing private businesses to drop  transfats from the menu, even if people freely want them, they many times exclude the public schools from the same restrictions. They really do just love the children.

Well, unless you want to abort one before the child ever has a chance to be born. Then they are all for harming children. You know, those darn kids just cost the government too much. Better they aren’t born. At least, that’s how many in government see them. But hey, if you are going to have kids anyway, once they are born, the government might as well exploit them for it’s advantage.

…Government protects you from murders and thieves.

Do they really? It seems to me the government only comes in after the murder or burglary has already been committed. As I mentioned in previous posts, the only person who can defend you and your family is you. As long as you have the right to own guns, you can protect your property and your life. After all, there is no one who cares more about your family and your property than you do. Those who give up guns in hopes that the government will save them are just making themselves easy targets.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have police or laws, but do we really need cameras all over the place, so you have no privacy. Do we need cops sitting on the side of the road every five feet getting their ticket quotas in? Do we need to throw millions in prison,  not because they murdered or stole, but because they decide to smoke weed instead of drink?

Do we need government to throw those evil insider traders into prison? Of course, right? This is what we’ve been brainwashed to believe. Somehow it’s evil to buy or sell a stock because you have inside information, but it’s not evil to hold onto a stock because of inside information? Buying and selling are all signals to the market, so in the example of Enron, owners of the stock might have known ahead of time that the company was a sham if insider trading was permitted. Instead, many lost the savings they had in the company, because insiders weren’t allowed to trade on that evil insider information. I guess instead of protecting us from theft, the government put laws into place to make sure the theft had to take place and was concealed until the bitter end.

…Government protects us from foreign enemies.

This is one we used to all be able to support. Unfortunately, in pursuit of empire, this is not so anymore. As I said in part 1 of this post, no nation would try to invade the US with the amount of weaponry held by the populace. If you think the Soviets got bogged down in Afghanistan and the US got bogged down in Vietnam, that would be nothing compared to what would happen if a country tried invading the US. Our foreign policy has gone from protection to empire. In this pursuit, we create enemies.

Now, I know terrorism is something that gets the blood boiling on all sides. As a recovering neocon, I used to think we were waging a just war on terrorist. The problem is who is instigating terrorism? As long as we keep telling ourselves it’s just because terrorist hate our way of life, this war will never end. Of course, that may be what the government wants. Anyway, ask yourself when terrorism against the US began. Some said it began under Carter, when the Iranians took US hostages. Was that terrorism? We were supporting a dictator in their country, and they revolted against the dictator and us. OK, then it must have been under Reagan when terrorist bombed one of our bases in Beirut. Well, this may be it, but what did Reagan do? Unlike our current policy, Reagan pulled out. He knew it was us being their that instigated the bombing. How many attacks did we have after that? I might be missing something, but I don’t recall any. Ok, so when did it really pick back up again? Well, the first attack was after the gulf war when we decided to setup bases on arab lands and not leave. We’ve had terrorist attacks ever since.

Instead of realizing it’s our bases and using those bases to support the likes of the Saudis that instigates terrorism, we let our leaders tell us it’s that we live. They hate our way of life. “What? Those bastards hate us. Here’s my money and rights government. Go get em!”

Meanwhile, if you listen to what the terrorist want to do to the US, they are achieving it. We are going to go bankrupt, just as we bankrupted the Soviet Union. History is full of empires who never learn the lessons of empire. We’re witnessing the latest. Unfortunately, it’s us.

…Government <Fill in the blank>

You can make up any excuse for the use of force, which is all government is. Everyone wants to win elections, so they can use the gun of government to impose their views on society. In a free society without government or a very small government, you would not be able to do this. You would actually have to convince your neighbor to do something. Can you image? Wow, it would be horrible to have to convince him. It’s so much easier to just stick a gun to his head.

The biggest myth of all is that we need government. If you ever want to think outside the box, there are ways for society to exist without government. Think about wars. Do you really have wars because the people want to fight. I’m guessing an Iraqi and an American would probably get a long just well if they bumped into each other in the street. What you really have wars for is government. Our government wants  their government to do something, and when it doesn’t, our government decides we are going to force them to do it. It’s no different than, if I asked my neighbor to do something, and when he said no, I went back over with a gun and stuck it to his head. Oh wait, we do that too. That’s what government is.

I don’t know if it gets any scarier than the thought of having to go through interrogations like this just to go to some event.

I’m sure one day this will be standard operation procedure for road blocks. Better hope you don’t get flustered easily. You’ll end up being waterboarded and shipped off to Egypt for interrogation by people not held back by US law. Worst yet, maybe you’ll be added to Obama’s hit list and assassinated.

From The Daily Paul

It’s amazing how angry people get when you question government programs and regulations. Usually, they do not backup their undying faith in government. They simply use obscenities. What causes this devotion? I simply don’t get it. Government’s consistently lie to us. They only pretend they are going to keep their word during elections, and then after they are elected, they break almost every promise they make. They even have the nerve to laugh about it. Remember Nancy Pelosi and her “A lot of promises are made on the campaign trail. Hahahahaha” What? This is what inspires complete, unquestioning devotion to government?

Liberals constantly tell us about the selfishness of their fellowmen. We are supposed to believe that neighbors would sit idly by watching their neighbor starving to death, so the government in all it’s compassion must steal everyone’s money to make sure that doesn’t happen. We are told that without the government, it would be complete chaos. People would be killing each other in the streets. Without regulation, companies would be killing their customers with poisons and crappy products. Without welfare, people would sleep in the streets dying beneath our feet as we all just walk by not caring. Charity is fine, but there just isn’t enough caring people to donate enough to take care of the poor. Doctors aren’t compassionate enough to provide low cost or free services to the poor. Basically, we are all just a bunch of barbarians, and luckily for us the government keeps us civilized.

Really?

Were we really worse off when we had less government? Were people less friendly and compassionate 100 years ago when government was smaller? Were families and neighbors further apart than they are now? Did charities and foundations not get enough donations to create library systems, universities, and the like? Were people killing each other left and right? Were companies killing people with poisons and death contraptions? These are all just scare tactics to make us beg for more government. We are told we need government to protect us from each other. In order to protect us, we surrender our rights to the government. We grant them the sole right to use force against us. We allow the government to steal, kill and harass us.

All these claims are no different than the neocons’ claims that we need to be deathly afraid of arabs and communists. This too is just to scare us and have us begging for more government. There is no way Muslims could conquer a free people such as those in the United States. The Soviet Union couldn’t have conquered the US even if all the dominoes fell. As long as a people have the right to bear arms and value freedom, they will remain free. I’d love to see a country try to invade the US with 200 million civilian guns and another 100 million professional arms in use. The only way this is possible is if our own government takes our guns from us. Of course, if they do that, then they’d really claim only they can protect us.

So what is the truth then? The truth is the government lies, cheats and steals to get more power. It could care less about protecting or providing for us. It is constantly looking for angles to exploit. Then it creates massive media campaigns to convince everyone they are in danger and the government alone is the only one who can fix the problem. How do they propose to fix the problem? Do they really have anything to offer? No, of course not. We all know the government produces nothing. It’s no different than the mob. The mob didn’t produce anything. It just stole production from others, and then redistributed it. It takes resources at the point of a gun, and then uses it to purchase more power for itself. Then the government and all their sycophants tell us they are doing it to protect us.

Can someone tell me why we are supposedly a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but then we are told the people are too uncaring, ruthless and selfish? We are supposed to believe that in general the people won’t take care of their friends, families and neighbors, because they are too selfish. The people would exploit each other. They would kill each other and steal from each other. But then we are told we are governed by the people through democracy. How can we trust this democracy if the people are so evil to begin with? How can we trust our elected officials if they are us, and they are also selfish, uncaring, ruthless people.

The government is more like an abusive spouse who tells their victims they are just keeping them in line. Without them, the victim would have nothing. They couldn’t fend for themselves. The abusive spouse is really protecting them. As citizens we collectively buy into the abuse. “Yes, I know he/she beats me, but I really deserve it. I was wrong.”

Really? Wake up already. The government needs us. We don’t need the government. The government needs us so they can siphon money and production from the producers in society to fill the pockets of a select few. Does TARP and bailouts ring a bell? In order to not be so obvious about it, they buy off the poor in society. They expand the number of poor through ever increasing entitlements in order enslave enough of us, so that they always have a big enough voting block to get more power. Like the abusive spouse, they tell those who get entitlements that only they will provide for them. They’d have nothing without the government. Their fellow man would neither offer them a job or a meal.

So, I can hear it now. The defenders of big government immediately say businesses and the powerful would run roughshod over all of us in order to gain more power and wealth. Hmmm, I hate to say it, but that sounds very close to what government does. Let’s just take a few of these “government is good” claims and see if they really add up.

….to be continued

If you’ve been following my blog, you already know I am no fan of the FDA. This bureaucracy costs drug developers so much time and money that many drugs that could save lives are never invested in and developed. I’ve talked about that here and here. This morning, the Wall Street Journal has an article about FDA staffers “helping” companies move their orphaned drugs through the process by holding workshops. The underlying story, if you read between the lines, is many drugs never make it to the market because the FDA is a road barrier that is not worth overcoming for rare diseases. The end result is people with rare diseases die or have to live with their disease with a lot less hope that a drug will be developed, all thanks to your all caring government.

Staff members at the Food and Drug Administration are doing something unusual. They are leaving Washington to help drug makers take a crucial step in developing drugs for rare diseases.

Only a statist would consider it a crucial step in the development of a drug to fill out government paperwork.

The staffers help administer the Orphan Drug Act, which provides incentives to create therapies for so-called orphan diseases—those that affect fewer than 200,000 Americans. There are about 7,000 such maladies, most of them serious, that have few or no drugs to treat them, from adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare head and neck cancer, to Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, which is associated with a tumor that causes the production of high levels of stomach acid.

As a result, doctors may end up prescribing drugs developed for other diseases off-label, but not all insurers will cover this kind of use.

Getting an orphan-drug designation opens the door to incentives once the FDA approves a medicine for sale in the U.S., including seven years’ marketing exclusivity and tax breaks. Last year, just 250 requests for orphan-drug designation were filed, and 160 received it.

“We’re barely scratching the surface,” says Timothy Coté, director of the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development, the workshop’s sponsor. He says there are roughly 350 orphan drugs approved, covering about 150 rare diseases.

Tim Cunniff, vice president of global regulatory affairs at Lundbeck Inc., which has a number of approved orphan drugs, says most companies developing orphan drugs are small.

As I’ve stated previously, the big companies love the FDA. It’s a barrier to small companies from developing drugs to bring to market, which means less competition for Big Pharma. Small companies would develop drugs for rare diseases, because they see the whole in the market. The problem for them though is trying to find $1 billion dollars and up to 15 years time to move the drug through the FDA. This is a huge barrier to entry, and it leaves people with these rare diseases to suffer.

Big companies are starting to get more interested in rare diseases, but the key issue is the high cost of developing a drug and the typically long time it takes to move it from a lab into a clinic as a treatment that gets prescribed. Before starting down this arduous path, a company needs to feel there is a reasonable chance of making a profit.

Bing-O. Here is the proof that the FDA is a hindrance to progress. Companies have to make predictions about an extremely expensive and time consuming process, that can be swayed by politics. As we all know, everything has opportunity costs. If they decide to move forward on one drug, the money and time spent moving it through the FDA process is money and time that are not spent developing the next drug. Because of this alone, we are losing out on more drugs, but we are also making it much harder for companies to decide in favor of moving forward with a drug. It’s probably almost never going to happen for drugs for rare diseases, because the market is so small.

To help get more applications, Dr. Coté’s office put out the word: Help is available, in two workshops with on-the-spot regulatory advice. The first workshop, held last month at the Keck Graduate Institute here, drew 29 potential sponsors, from major drug companies to academic centers, small biotechs and even some patient advocates. In a follow-up survey, 74% said they had never before filed an application for orphan drug designation.

Dr. Coté said he wanted participants to understand that the workshop wasn’t providing an alternative pathway to orphan-drug designation, just regulatory advice. He said it was very important that the FDA avoid the “perception of favoritism” and even stressed that in the cover letter to an application, the sponsors shouldn’t say they had been at the workshop.

Sure wouldn’t want the “perception of favoritism”. Don’t make it easier for companies to develop drugs for rare diseases, that otherwise won’t be developed. That would be just horrible.

Barbara Fant, president and chief executive of Clinical Research Consultants Inc., attended the workshop to prepare an application for a drug-company client, and said this was her first time filing for an orphan drug designation.

An FDA staffer pointed out issues in her application that “would have come back to me as questions and delayed the designation process” if she had filed before the workshop. “I learned some nuances that I didn’t know,” said Dr. Fant, who declined to provide details about her client or the drug.

Who says you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to fill out government papers correctly. I guess being a doctor just isn’t enough. If this lady was not at this workshop, should would have probably just lost months of time before this paper went into the FDA bureaucracy and got turned down and returned, because it was missing some “nuance”.

An orphan-drug designation is no guarantee a medicine will ultimately be approved for marketing. A different FDA division reviews safety and efficacy data for approval. Upon further testing, a drug may turn out to be too dangerous or not effective. Companies may decide a product is too expensive to make, change direction, or go out of business. But Dr. Phillips and Dr. Coté hope that by increasing the pool of applicants for designation, they will increase the chances of getting more approvals.

via FDA Pushes for Cures for Rare Diseases – WSJ.com.

Did you get the underlying message of this article? Do you need more proof that the government, in this case the FDA, is a road barrier to progress? There really is no need for the FDA. There could easily be a private mechanism for testing drugs. All it would take a is change to patent laws, which have to give Big Pharma complete control of the market for a long time in order for them to make enough profit to make it worth bringing a drug to market. Because of the huge expense of the FDA, that control of the market has to be longer than it otherwise would need to be.

Also, as John pointed out in the comments section on this post, why couldn’t the FDA be optional? Why can’t we as consumers have a choice between an expensive FDA approved drug and a cheaper non-FDA approved drug? Surely, the non-FDA approved drug will go through the rigors of private testing via competitors, doctors and universities. We know the answer to that though. Government can never have something that challenges it’s claim to be our protector. If we allowed non-FDA options, the FDA would shortly be proven useless.

Following up on an earlier post about democracy, here is a great find from The Daily Paul. I constantly hear about us being a democracy, even by conservatives. It’s considered taboo to say anything bad about democracies, but we were not founded as a democracy, which is why our government was supposed to be extremely limited in what it could do. Our founders knew that democracy was a horrible system.

Democracy is …

…the majority turning their guns on the minority.

…the majority enslaving the minority.

…the creation of human sacrifices for the majority.

…the destruction of the individual.

…constant growth in government as the majority votes more to themselves.

…the road to absolute tyranny.

YouTube – Democracy is not Freedom!.