I watched a documentary this weekend called The Listening Project, and it made me think about my post Public Education – A View From Outside The Matrix. The documentary has a group of people traveling around the world asking people what they think about these United States (notices these instead of the!).

The one thing that I noticed is most of the people knew a lot more about history than most Americans do. They were talking about Rome, Julius Ceasar, etc. While many Americans may have heard of both, they probably aren’t able to explain either and how they relate to modern times. To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember being taught about Rome in school. What I know of Rome has been self taught as an adult. I guess that wasn’t part of what the government mandates us to learn. Study hall was no doubt more important to society.

What the people recognized was we are no doubt the last empire of the world. Now conservatives will argue that we don’t want to conquer lands, so there for we aren’t an empire. We cannot have bases in well over 100 countries, claim we use our bases to look out for our national interests, and then say we aren’t an empire. We use our military and economic power to push countries in the direction we want. Anyways, this is all besides the point. The point is the rest of the world recognizes that we are an empire, and that we are no different than the Roman Empire. Countless people said we are the Rome of today, and that like Rome our empire will perish. They didn’t say this in a way that they want it to happen. They were stating the obvious. It’s too bad most Americans don’t recognize this, because all it would take to avoid it is getting back to what we were founded on.

The other thing that was noticeable in the documentary was that most of the people love the idea of America. They love the people and the spirit that is America. They love the idea that someone can pursue their dreams and make it. What they didn’t like was our government. This goes back to our foreign policy and how we try to force the world to be more like us. It was a bit shocking to see how many of them specifically stated there is a difference between the people and the government. Considering we elect these bums, that was pretty charitable. So here we are socializing everything under the sun, but it isn’t the social programs other nations love. It wasn’t our stimulus bills or our banking system. It’s our liberty. It’s what they believe we have. They don’t realize that we have lost so much liberty, but then again most Americans don’t recognize how much liberty we have lost.

Anyway, it was a pretty good documentary. It’s definitely worth watching. I’m guessing it was made to bash Bush, but I’m sure the people that were interviewed would probably still have the same opinions with Obama in the White House. He has only been a change for the worst. It’s just a shame that public education in this country is leading us down a path of ignorance compared to other parts of he world. When people in South Africa are explaining how Rome fell and how that relates to the US, yet most Americans wouldn’t know what they are talking about, you know it won’t be long before the new Rome is no more.

Another one bites the dust…..

The Venezuelan government, already facing power and water problems and a shaky economy, is including scheduled power outages nationwide as part of its ongoing electricity rationing efforts, the state-run news agency reported.

Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez said the latest energy-saving measures are meant to prevent a power collapse that could occur if water levels in the Guri dam system continue to drop, the Bolivarian News Agency reported. Oil-rich Venezuela relies heavily on hydroelectric power, which has been hurt by drought.

Officials with the state electric utilities in Caracas, the capital, and two other western states today announced plans for four-hour outages every other day, the Associated Press reported.

Venezuela started the year with new government restrictions on power consumption, including a limit on the hours commercial centers may use the electricity grid.

via Venezuela expanding electricity rationing to include scheduled power outages nationwide | La Plaza | Los Angeles Times.

Gotta love socialism! Seriously, why did we elected a socialist again? And why do these idiots think we can make socialism work? Oh, that’s right, “Because we are Americans”. Even though we are all humans, the adjective American apparently means we can defy all historical evidence, economic science, and who knows maybe gravity.

This is what happens every time government is the decider of any economic matter. It does not matter what it is. In the US we are only prosperous to the point of which government isn’t involved in the economy. Our prosperity would be so much more if the government wasn’t involved at all, and it’s going to be so much less now that they have involved themselves so much more.

While I don’t have to say this for my regular readers, for all the new folks, the free market always allocates resources to their highest and best use. That is why you do not have shortages in something that your country has in abundance like you do in oil rich Venezuela. Anytime, and I mean anytime without exception, the government changes the way the free market functions, you get resources being allocated in a less useful way. The bottom line is that means the standard of living is decreased. Venezuela is a perfect example of standards of living being decreased by the government’s misallocation of resources. Now something as simple as energy is going to be rationed. If food rationing has started yet, it will be as will many other things. Producing and distributing of goods requires energy, so what do you think is going to happen now that energy is being rationed?

Considering how stupid governments are, I would not be surprised to see Venezuela reallocate resources to energy, and then have an abundance of energy. The only problem is because it will be centrally planned by an idiotic government (and they are all idiotic), they will have over allocated energy resources and some other resource(s) will be under allocated. This is what happens when a few people, far away from the actual transaction decide what transactions should be taking place months if not years in advance. Think about how inefficient that is. The free market on the other hand adjusts resource allocations by the second based on the constant tweaking of millions of individual transactions.

There is no doubt that America will be facing the same issues soon. Our government is centrally planning the cost of money, the housing market, the auto manufacturers, the banking industry, schooling, energy, the food supply, travel, health care and the list goes on and on. Instead of resources being steered by the end consumer and producer, Washington thinks they know who need what and how much of it they need. While we have been the frog in the increasingly hot water for probably the past 100 years, it seems Obama increasing rate of socialization has caused us to realize the waters boiling. Hopefully, we can stop it before we become Venezuela. Hopefully, the people of Venezuela realize their folly and revolt against their dictorial government. It’s their only hope, and not to far it the future it may be our only hope as well.

What’s wrong with C-SPAN? Do they think this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Silly C-SPAN.

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open “all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings,” to televised coverage on his network.

“The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety,” he wrote.

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference on health legislation negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to object to the premise behind the request.

“There has never been a more open process for any legislation in anyone who’s served here’s experience,” she said.

via FOXNews.com – C-SPAN Challenges Congress to Open Health Care Talks to TV Coverage.

I’d like to know where the outrage is on this one. There is nothing that the government should be doing that should be done in secret. These are supposed to be our representatives, so how can someone represent you without you knowing what they are saying on your behalf?

Of course, this post is all rhetorical. It’s obvious that our government, no matter which party is in charge, is not representing the people. They are conspiring in secret, because they are conspiring on how to stay in power. They want to setup a structure where you are at the mercy of them. Oh, and don’t worry about those who claim to be not running again, like Chris Dodd. You’ll see his ugly face around Washington until his last breath. He’ll be conspiring from the outside to fatten his wallet, and to keep his accomplices in power. Make no mistake about it.

What was that Jefferson said about the tree of liberty……

Here’s a great op-ed from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

So Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got within an inch of having hundreds of airline passengers fall from the sky over Detroit on Christmas day, thanks to the ongoing holes in government-run security — some eight years after the attacks of 9/11.

And then we discovered that taxpayers paid almost $2 million to caulk and seal just seven leaky houses in Texas, i.e., $286,000 per house, under the federal government’s go-green weatherization program.

And we're still supposed to believe that these amateurish and occasionally corrupt half-wits in government are up to the task of fixing something as complex and multifaceted as America’s health care system?

I thought cash for clunkers was nuts, but cash for caulkers might well have it topped on the craziness meter.

With the clunkers fiasco, promoted as a way to prop up the U.S. car industry, we ended up borrowing money from China to buy cars from Japan and South Korea.

By the time the cash ran out, we were an additional $3 billion in the hole, more than half a million turned-in trucks and cars had been unnecessarily smashed, and eight of the 10 top-selling new vehicles in the program were purchased from foreign manufacturers, thereby subsidizing Detroit’s key competitors.

At $286,000 per house, the cash-for-caulkers deal looks like it’ll have no trouble racking up even higher levels of irrationality, fraud and tax waste.

Texas got millions in federal tax dollars via the stimulus package to fix up the caulk-ready houses of the poor. Over the first four months, the state spent $1.8 million, and only the aforementioned seven houses had been weather-treated. A tube of the best caulking at Home Depot, enough to caulk approximately 50 feet, sells for about $7.

Rather than paying for caulking or putting jobless caulkers to work, nearly all of the $1.8 million ended up in the pockets of state employees, i.e., the planners, the green team.

President Obama, nonetheless, praised the caulking program as a triple delight: “You’re getting a three-fer. Not only are you immediately putting people back to work, but you’re also saving families on (their) energy bills and you’re laying the groundwork for long-term energy independence.”

Actually, he should have called it a four-fer. It also redistributes income by taking money from the top half of income earners (the top half of income earners pay 97 percent of total federal income taxes) to provide free weather-stripping to those at the bottom who disproportionately vote for Democrats. It’s like sticking up “the rich” with a caulking gun.

Read the full article here Costly caulkers & crackpots – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Many blogs had a year in review type of posting on New Year’s Day.  LewRockwell.com had one with this Glenn Beck video where he discusses the how auto dealers’ computers became federal property when they logged into the cash for clunkers computer system.

While I remember this story, it got me to thinking. Many people assume this is no big deal. This is just car dealers. It doesn’t effect them. Well, that is very short sighted. Number one, even if it went no further than the dealer’s computers, how do you know the government isn’t gather information on you via the dealer. After all, you probably filled out a loan application. Did your earnings on your application match what was reported to the IRS? Any way, that is a fairly minor issue compared to what could happen.

As you know, many computers are infected daily because most users don’t pay attention to what they are clicking on. Some window on the internet pops up, and the user clicks yes, no, close, etc. When they do that, their computer becomes infected with spyware. This sounds very similar to what the federal government did to the auto dealers. So, how would they do this to regular people? Well, we’ve all heard about the new market place where we can all shop and compare insurance plans that meet federal standards. Is it that far fetched to think, when you login to this “insurance marketplace” that the government couldn’t have a similar warning? Do you think most citizens would even pay attention?

Over the holidays, AT&T had bandwidth issues with their iPhones. Here is an example of what you get when government controls resources.

AT&T previously acknowledged that its network has been overwhelmed by iPhone users in New York and San Francisco, where dropped connections and long waits for running programs are not uncommon. These data-hungry cell phones compete for bandwidth with broadcast TV, radio and Wi-Fi networks, and wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon say that they’re running out of capacity.

We’re told that the situation in New York City over the weekend had mostly to do with AT&T underestimating iPhone demand. But unless policies for allocating spectrum become more conducive to new technologies, turning away potential customers could become more frequent.

The reality is that the demand for mobile broadband is exploding, thanks to the popularity of the iPhone and rivals like the Palm Pre, the Blackberry and Verizon's Droid. According to the Federal Communications Commission, the use of smart phones has grown by nearly 700% the past four years, and mobile data are increasing at a projected rate of 130% annually as more people use their phones to send photos and watch videos.

Spectrum is finite, but it doesn’t need to be as scarce as it is. The problem is how the frequencies are being managed. Less than 10% of the spectrum coveted by wireless carriers has been allocated for commercial use. Much of the rest is controlled by the government. Television broadcasters and satellite companies also possess excess spectrum that could be made available to wireless carriers. Competitive bidding is the best way to allocate spectrum, but the government auctions are much too infrequent—only two in the past four years—and the licenses often come with cumbersome restrictions. The result is congested networks, frustrated customers and slower innovation.

Legislation sponsored by John Kerry and Olympia Snowe in the Senate, along with Henry Waxman and Rick Boucher in the House, would mandate an inventory of available spectrum to identify bands that are unused or underused. It’s a good place to start.

via Wireless Carriers Running Out of Capacity – WSJ.com.

Government action, especially from idiots like John Kerry, is not a good start in my opinion. The reason the allocation of spectrums is not in accordance with the demand of users is because the government allocates them. The government decides which bands are allocated for which type of technology.

Government never allocates resouces well, so why would anyone think that this is different. The market should allocate the spectrums. In the market, if cell phone usage is growing, the value of spectrums used by another technology would increase. If that technology is not growing, or in many cases shrinking, then those spectrums would naturally be put up for sale to make profits for the companies who’s technology isn’t in as much demand anymore.

Why aren’t these allocated by the market? Well, I’m sure people believe these are a public good, and that government must control these. Government must protect us from…. Anyway, they probably say that some wealthy guy will swoop in and buy them all up. Yeah, I’m sure a very rich guy would outbid the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Apple, etc. I’m also sure he’d love to have his money tied up in something if he can’t produce profits from it.

“Yeah Prof, but what about the speculators?”, you say. Well, what’s wrong with speculators. If speculators bought up some spectrums, what would be wrong with that? “Well, they’d drive up the price, Prof.” True, but who says that’s a bad thing. Ask yourself, what are they speculating on. Speculators don’t just buy things up for grins and giggles. They buy them up in anticipation of some news that will make their investment worth more money. Let’s say there is a new technology that comes out next week, and that technology needs a band on the spectrum. Now, let’s say all the spectrums are taken. Oh, wait, the speculator has a band. It may be pricey, but it’s available for sale. The speculator made a good bet, and he’s about to reap his reward. Now, if it wasn’t for that speculator, there would have been no unused bands available for sale. The speculator rationed the bands for us. Not only that, he didn’t sell it at low fixed price like the government would (just to be fair) to someone who would willy nilly buy it for some technology that no one uses. He held it out for a technology that had enough demand that the price he was charging was still a good investment. In other words, he made sure that the most people possible got the benefit.

The government on the other hand would allocate bands based on politics. What is the most beneficial way for them to use these spectrums to get re-elected. It always comes down to re-election. They use our supposed public goods against us to entice us to re-elect them again and again. All this does is encourage them to find new public goods, which is confiscated from private goods, to gain more power over us.

Here’s a great post I found by way of The Daily Paul.

For the past few days, I’ve received loads of emails urging me to get active regarding the healthcare vote – most of which had a subject line similar to: “Last Chance to Stop National Healthcare!”

Well, if you believe the only way to protect your rights is by begging federal politicians to do what you want, then these emails are certainly right. The vote went as expected, and so will the next.

So if you think marching on D.C. or calling your Representatives, or threating to “throw the bums out” in 2010 or 2012 or 20-whatever, is going to further the cause of the Constitution and your liberty – you might as well get your shackles on now. Your last chance has come and gone.

But, those of you who visit this site regularly already know that the Senate’s health care vote is far from the end of things – and you also know that even when it goes into effect (which I assume some version will), it’s still not the end of the road for your freedom.

The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.

Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

It’s peaceful, effective, and has a long history in the American tradition. It’s been invoked in support of free speech, in opposition to war and fugitive slave laws, and more. Read more on this history here.

Regarding nullification and health care, there’s already a growing movement right now. Led by Arizona, voters in a number of states may get a chance to approve State Constitutional Amendments in 2010 that would effectively ban national health care in their states. Our sources here at the Tenth Amendment Center indicate to us that we should expect to see 20-25 states consider such legislation in 2010.

20 States resisting DC can do what calling, marching, yelling, faxing, and emailing has almost never done. Stop the feds dead in their tracks.

For example, 13 states are already defying federal marijuana prohibition, and the federal government is having such a hard time dealing with it that the Obama administration recently announced that they would no longer prioritize enforcement in states that have medical marijuana laws.

Better yet, in the last 2+ years more than 20 states have been able to effectively prevent the Real ID Act of 2005 from being implemented. How did they do that? They passed laws and resolutions refusing to comply with it. And today, it’s effectively null and void without ever being repealed by Congress or challenged in court.

While the Obama administration would like to revive it under a different name, the reality is still there – with massive state-level resistance, the federal government can be pushed back inside its constitutional box. Issue by issue, law by law, the best way to change the federal government is by resisting it on a state level.

That’s nullification at work.

Over the years, wise men and women warned us that the Constitution would never enforce itself. The time is long overdue for people to start recognizing this fact, and bring that enforcement closer to home.

The bottom line? If you want to make real change; if you want to really do something for liberty and for the Constitution…focus on local activism and your state governments.

Thomas Jefferson would be proud!

via Health Care Nullification: Things have just gotten underway | Tenth Amendment Center.

According to a post on The Business Insider, the Treasury department gave Fannie and Freddie a blank check, so they can be as stupid as they want to be.

The Treasury snuck in another big bailout on Christmas Eve: It removed the cap on the amount of money it will provide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to cover their ongoing mortgage losses. There is now no limit on how much we taxpayers will shovel down these black holes.

The move is designed to reassure Fannie and Freddie bondholders, who provide a lot of the money the companies use to support the housing market. These bondholders have now apparently been given an explicit government guarantee, in perpetuity. The move is also obviously designed to continue to prop up house prices, which, thanks to artificially low mortgage rates, are still above long-term norms.

On a more positive note, the Treasury also announced that it will stop buying Fannie and Freddie mortgages (though the Fed will presumably keep doing so). The total bailout so far is $111 billion.

The removal of the cap will further distort prices and activity in the housing market, which is now massively subsidized by government programs. It will continue to reward bondholders for being stupid. And it will likely result in additional huge losses for taxpayers.

It was obviously not an accident that the Treasury announced the plan after the market close on Christmas Eve, or that the press-release headline made the announcement sound like a mere “update.” Republicans, understandably, are screaming.

via Geithner Gives Housing Industry A Huge Christmas Present: Unlimited Fannie And Freddie Bailouts.

If you were told no matter what risky investments you made you would not take loses, would you be more risky or less? Apparently, the government thinks that removing the risk is the best way to fix these irresponsible government sponsored entities.

This must be more of the transparency of the Obama administration releasing this information on Christmas Eve, when most people are trying to enjoy time with their families. Little did they know, they were getting bent over by the government again.

Great op-ed in my local paper.

It was in 1774 that John Adams reminded how the “most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiple oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties.”

And that’s not merely to “oppress the individual or a few,” the father of the Constitution added, “but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited.”

Mr. Adams, of course, would have been labeled a “right-wing extremist” or a “militia maniac” by today’s “progressives” in Congress who have been working so assiduously to soil the fabric of America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would dismiss Adams’ sentiment as “un-American” and tap dance around its implications of unconstitutional freelancing.

But on the cusp of a new year and the second decade of the 21st century, this is where America finds itself: Constitutional perverts and rule of law scofflaws are in charge, the once-creeping crud of socialism has broken into a trot and an increasing number of good and decent people really are mad as hell and not willing to take another centimeter of the shaft.

And perhaps, just perhaps, revolution is nigh.

“Revolution” is a dicey word in any era. Indeed, it can be accomplished by the ballot and not the bullet. But the Founders and the Framers had no qualms about the latter. How soon today’s “leaders” — supposed custodians of the Constitution but merely unionized garbagemen — seem to forget that America was born in armed revolt and that the luminaries of the era acknowledged its necessity in the defense of natural rights.

Certainly, and as Thomas Jefferson reminded in the Declaration of Independence, “governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” But the heaviness and permanence of the corrupt nature of our government surely will force the hand of the people to press the button or pull the trigger in the new year.

So shameless are corruption’s practitioners and their enablers that their behavior is rationalized through euphemisms. Bribery of the sort that would land those in the private sector in the pokey for 10 years is called “legislating” in Washington. It is rewarded with tenure by voters either too enamored with the supposed windfall to understand that the depth of the pickpocketing reaches to their ankles or with memories far too short to effect change in the next election.

Pennsylvania, the State of Independence, now is the State of Corruption. Grand jury allegations more than suggest the state Legislature operates as a corrupt, criminal enterprise. And the words of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights from 1776 never have tolled more clearly: “The community hath an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish government, in such a manner as shall be by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal.”

“Suckling at the public teat,” you’ll notice, is missing.

Americans and Pennsylvanians faces a crucial test in 2010. They can either continue traveling down the road to serfdom or return to liberty’s boulevard. The republic’s future hangs in the balance.

via Serfdom vs. liberty in 2010 – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

This is what socialism brings.

Poverty has forced at least 225,000 children in Haiti’s cities into slavery as unpaid household servants, far more than previously thought, a report said Tuesday.

The Pan American Development Foundation’s report also said some of those children — mostly young girls — suffer sexual, psychological and physical abuse while toiling in extreme hardship.

The report recommends Haiti’s government and international donors focus efforts on educating the poor and expanding social services such as shelters for girls, who make up an estimated two-thirds of the child servant population.

Young servants are known as “restavek” — Haitian Creole for “stays with” — and their plight is both widely known and a source of great shame in the Caribbean nation that was founded by a slave revolt more than 200 years ago.

via Report says 225,000 Haiti children work as slaves | Top AP Latin America Stories | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

Just a couple thoughts on this. This is what happens when you have a socialist/welfare mentality as a society. Haiti has long been looked at as a nation that needs handouts. All handouts do is destroy the incentive to work. We should allow nations like Haiti to fail, and when they do, real leaders will step up to eventually move the country forward. The problem is countries, like the United States, always rush in to save them from failure, and what you get is a worsening condition that would have long ago ended if rock bottom was allowed to be hit.

Also, child slavery is somewhat of a red herring. Is a child having to work to help support their family slavery? Were children slaves when we were more agricultural, and they worked on the farm? It’s silly to automatically say they are slaves. If there is sexual abuse that is much different. That is something that should be severly punished, because it is an act of violence on an individual (even worse that it’s a child). Work is not violence, and it is not slavery. If the child is prevented from working by do gooder liberals, there is a much larger chance that the child will die of starvation, be pushed into criminal enterprises, or become an orphan.

I love how our media and liberal elites love to sit back and judge other countries. “They can’t have child labor. Look at us. We are outlawed that long ago.” Do they really think that Haitian parents care or love their children any less than they do? Talk about arrogance. We once had child labor too. Not because we loved our children less back then, but because it was a necessity of life.

The solution again is to let the country stand on its own. If Haiti’s citizens embrace a more capitalistic economy and are allowed to prosper, child slavery(labor) will eventually disappear. It disappears as productivity and prosperity increase, and child labor is no longer needed to sustain the livelihood of Haitian families. Why is it no longer needed? Because prosperity is increased by productivity increases. The more productive a society is, the more prosperous it is. Productivity and prosperity feed on each other moving society continually upward. Productivity increases prosperity by giving more goods and services with less inputs, and prosperity when reinvested (not confiscated by gov’t) increases productivity by being able to afford technologies that can produce without more labor (example: machinery). The more productive the society, the less people that need to work for a given standard of living. Needing less people to work means eventually children will not need to work. Haitian parents, if given the opportunity, will choose to not have their children work, just like American parents. That opportunity won’t present itself though until liberals let them fail, and they embrace capitalism.