While catching up on my Google Reader subscriptions, I came across this debate between Glenn Beck, who claims to be a libertarian and Bill O’Reilly, who claims to fight for the little guy, but I think just wants the little guy held at bay by a large police state.

To start O’Reilly says not reading Miranda rights to someone suspected of terrorism should be the law of the land, and it’s for public safety. So, what would be the difference with someone suspected of murder? What if you bust the guy in the act of murder? Do you ignore his Miranda rights for public safety? How do you know he’s not a terrorist? You may find out later he’s a Muslim. Doesn’t that automatically mean he’s a terrorist because he’s a Muslim and committed a murder? Ok, I’m rambling here, but I think you see what I’m getting at. You cannot immediately classify someone as a terrorist, and say they shouldn’t have their Miranda rights. I might have missed it, but I’m pretty sure this guy in New York did not have his “I’m a terrorist” name tag on.

When the debate begins, Beck sounds like he’s heading down the right path, but he quickly veers off into “Citizens, Bill, Citizens”.  So how do you know someone is a citizen at the moment of arrest? Shouldn’t everyone be read their Miranda rights if they are going to be tried? Now, I know this guy was arrested after they knew he was a citizen, but what if he was arrested in the act? How would the police know he’s a citizen? Beck then gives the correct point of, “When does a citizen become guilty. I thought we had to prove that.” Ah, he gets it! We can’t just take the government’s word that someone is guilty and say “to the gallows with this one”. The government must prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or you might as well not have a constitution protecting your liberty, because you have none.

After O’Reilly starts challenging Beck though, it quickly seems like Beck is looking for an out. He’s not going to be out neocon’d by this clown O’Reilly.  How does he hedge it? He says “We’re treating this like a police action”, so until Obama starts treating it like a war, which apparently he has no problem with, he thinks we must read Miranda rights and uphold the Constitution. I guess if Obama changes it back to The War on Terror, Glenn is game for taking liberties and trashing the Constitution. Even when O’Reilly brings up Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, Beck says until Obama declares war, don’t talk to me. What? O’Reilly is fine with suspending habeas corpus now, and Beck is OK with it when Obama declares war? Lincoln also declared total war on his fellow citizens. He burnt entire towns to the ground, and did things that horrified the rest of the world. Is this supposed to be our example of how to treat citizens when it comes to terrorism? Of course Beck, who seems completely inconsistent, falls by the way side.

Finally, Beck goes on to describe what these powers could be used for ultimately, which is against the American people when they finally tell the government “Your time is up.” O’Reilly quickly poo-poos him, and instead of Beck arguing his point, he just starts laughing and giving O’Reilly verbal nuggies. What could have been a great debate was thus lost by neocon status envy. Maybe O’Reilly will have on someone who really cares about the Constitution one day, like the Judge. I doubt it though. That would be the shortest segment in O’Reilly history.

Hot Air » It’s on: Beck vs. O’Reilly over Miranda rights.

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

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.

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

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!.

Here are clips from the debate between Peter Schiff, Mrs. WWE, and some other guy. Notice how fluent Schiff is. He doesn’t have to pause and take his time speaking, because he is not lying. Now go watch Obama speak.

YouTube – Peter Schiff won the Republican U.S. Senate candidate debate in CT on 3-2-10.

Let’s hope Peter wins, and that this is just the first step in an 1800 style revolution.

Interesting that this would show up just days after my privatizing 911 post. If you watch the video or even if you read the post at Hot Air, everyone seems to think this has to be a government service that is provided for “free”.  Of course the news piece focuses on a retired gentlemen who is on a fixed income, because he probably depends on another crappy government program, social security.

My guess would be that the city is doing this knowing that people will be up an arms. There are probably 100s of other places to cut, but those are probably places voters don’t care about. They need the voters to get up in arms to raise taxes or to get the federal government to cough up more money. Ultimately though, this probably isn’t a bad idea. It shows people that government really does have a cost. Imagine if you had to pay one time fees for all government services. How quickly would the waste be  drained out of the system?

Saying that people shouldn’t or can’t pay $300 for a 911 call, which is probably used to save someone’s life, should tell us how bad our country has become. Who in their right mind wouldn’t spend $300 to save their life or someone else’s life? My only question would be why aren’t they having private sector companies competing for this business. If they are going to make people pay, at least let them have service from people who care about their jobs and a business who cares about their customers.

If we are ever as a nation are going to get back to the free market and back to any semblance of what the founders envisioned, we must realize that nothing the government “gives” us is free, and nothing the government does is more efficient than what the free market can deliver.

via Hot Air.

Now that Glenn Beck used the 9/11 Truther question to attempt to discredit Debra Medina, it appears he has handed the left the perfect stick to beat the teapartiers over the head with.

Luckily, teapartiers are not Jason Mattera’s Obama Zombies. They have people like Sheriff Mack, who know what and why they believe what they believe, so they don’t fall for idiots like Chris Matthews.

Another find from the Daily Paul.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ron Paul show’s what real conservatism is about at CPAC. The love the entrance music.

Sorry for the quality. This is the only video I could find that was full length.

YouTube – Ron Paul at CPAC – FULL SPEECH 2/19/10.

Great video I found on the Daily Paul.

All Republicans need to watch this. I don’t think they realize, while they are claiming they are for liberty, they are handing the government the tools to steal that liberty because of their foreign policy positions.

I saw this pop up on Hot Air, so I had to check it out. While I don’t believe the government had a roll in 9/11, other than incompetence, does anyone see the irony in Glenn Beck acting like truthers are nut jobs? So I guess Glenn’s question your government with boldness only applies to his questions and conspiracies.

Six days ago, the big news out of Texas was that Tea Party activist and gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina came within the margin of error with Kay Bailey Hutchison, who barely clung to second place against incumbent Rick Perry. Today, Glenn Beck suffers heartbreak when Medina more or less cops to being a 9/11 Truther as well as a “constitutional conservative” candidate.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Heartache: Tea Party candidate in Texas a 9/11 truther.

Again, I don’t believe in the 9/11 Truther conspiracy, but I think it’s completely crazy that we would cast aside an awesome candidate who apparently Beck was in love with until this so-called revelation because she didn’t just say 9/11 truthers are completely nuts and I’d imprison everyone of them in Gitmo.

I guess the hypocracy shouldn’t surprise me, but unfortuately I’m a Glenn Beck fan, so it’s pretty disappointing. I guess he’d rather stick with big government conservatives and cast all his rants aside in pursuit of the 9/11 Truther witches.

Update: Medina Responds to Beck

I was asked a question on the Glenn Beck show today regarding my thoughts on the so-called 9/11 truth movement. I have never been involved with the 9-11 truth movement, and there is no doubt in my mind that Muslim terrorists flew planes into those buildings on 9/11. I have not seen any evidence nor have I ever believed that our government was involved or directed those individuals in any way. No one can deny that the events on 9-11 were a tragedy for all Americans and especially those families who lost loved ones.

The question surprised me because it's not relevant to this race or the issues facing Texans. This campaign has always been about private property rights and state sovereignty. It is focused on the issues facing Texans. It is not a vehicle for the 9-11 truth movement or any other group.

The real underlying question here, though, is whether or not people have the right to question our government. I think the fact that people are even asking questions on this level gets to the incredible distrust career politicians have fostered by so clearly taking their direction from special interests instead of the people, whether it's Rick Perry and the his HPV mandate or Kay Hutchison and voting for the bank bailout. It is absolutely the right and duty of a free people to question their government. Texas does not need another politician who tells you what you want to hear, then violates your liberties and steals your property anyway. I fully expect to be questioned and to be held accountable as Governor, and that's the underlying issue here: should people be questioning their government. And the answer is yes, they should be.

via 2010: Medina Responds to 9/11 Flap | The Texas Tribune.