More and more government seems to be moving in on the freedom we have on the internet. Obama is pushing net neutraliy as a way to protect us from the evils of the companies who have already brought us ever increasing broadband and services. The FTC has begun cracking down on bloggers saying they have to disclose their relationships before blogging about a product. Police want warrantless access to your online data.

Now, the government is going to claim they need to protect us from internet attacks which have been around since the beginning of the internet. Oh no worries though, Microsoft, a company who’s having problems keeping up in the online arena, is backing the government.

A top Microsoft executive on Tuesday suggested a broad Internet tax to help defray the costs associated with computer security breaches and vast Internet attacks, according to reports. Speaking at a security conference in San Francisco, Microsoft Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney pitched the Web usage fee as one way to subsidize efforts to combat emerging cyber threats — a costly venture, he said, but one that had vast community benefits.”You could say it’s a public safety issue and do it with general taxation,” Charney noted.

via Microsoft exec pitches Internet usage tax to pay for cybersecurity – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.

Ok, I’ve always stuck up for Microsoft as far as monopoly claims go, but now I see why everyone hates them. Here is a company, who’s founder has more wealth than many countries, and they are saying the public should have more money stolen from them to “defray the costs associated with computer security breaches”, which are probably made possible by the crappy software they write. Maybe we’d all be better off if we got Apples.

The public should not have to defray the cost for corporate America. Businesses should consider security as cost of business, which they have up until now. The customer ultimately pays, but they are the ones benefitting from security measures. If my bank puts in security software and hires security professionals, am I not the one benefiting? Why should the guy down the street defray my bank’s cost to which he is not a customer?

So what happens once the government taxes the internet and internet security becomes a public good? Well, what happens with everything the government gets involved it. It basically turns to garbage (keeping it clean here). Innovation is stifled. Costs skyrocket.

It is not hard to see what’s coming. The writing is on the wall. Governments absolutely hate freedom. If they see people having too much freedom, they must get worried that the people are consipring against their power. So they do whatever they can to insert themselves into this freedomfest to make sure the people don’t realize that “Hey, this freedom thing works without the government. What if the rest of our lives were like this? ”

But, as I said, the writing is on the wall.

Previously I posted about government created unemployment and gave an example of how they create unemployment by impeding two free people from free exchange. Well, today the Wall Street Journal has some real world examples from people who are running businesses out of their houses….well trying to anyway. Many of these people were either laid off or had a business else where, but could not afford to keep a rented space. All of them though should be commended for taking responsibility for themselves and engaging in the free market to support themselves instead of becoming government welfare recipients. Instead they are faced with harassment by busy body government officials.

The recession is causing a growing number of people to venture into home businesses, a boost for the economy but a nuisance for neighbors.

As jobless people trade their desks for kitchen tables, or as businesses reduce costs by giving up commercial storefronts, cities and states are grappling with problems caused by a rise in home businesses such as traffic and noise.

Thanks for the Wall Street Journal framing the issue to make it seem like government is trying to prevent the complete chaos working people make at home. I work at home and know many people that do, and guess what? I don’t know anyone who creates traffic and noise. Cities and states aren’t grappling with these issues. They are grappling with not being able to milk higher taxes out of commercial properties and not being able to force people to run businesses where they want them to run businesses. It goes against their “master plan”.

Officials in Nashville, Tenn., are discussing ways to loosen restrictions governing the operation of home businesses as high unemployment prods a growing number of entrepreneurs into offering everything from hair perms to piano lessons out of their living rooms. (Oh the horror. The traffic and noise from piano lessons and hair perms must be horrendous!)

Nashville’s planning code allows home-based businesses as long as no customers come to the house—a rule that is causing problems for front-porch barbers and others. City officials are now drafting less-stringent zoning to bring before the planning commission this month.

Oh my world. The government is telling people who can come to their house, that you supposedly own and have property rights to. How does the government know if its a customer or a friend? I guess that just means they need more code enforcers to find out. This must be one of the ways government looks out for the little guy. Obviously, these people must be rich and greedy. Who do they think they are trying to earn money giving haircuts out of their house. Damn “Big Business”. They are evil.

Unemployment in the Greater Nashville area hit 9.4% in December, compared with 6.5% a year earlier. Mr. Bernhardt estimates there are now 14,000 business with licenses that are operating illegally because they are located in residential areas, in violation of zoning codes.

Sounds like we have at least 14,000 criminals on the loose. Better hire more cops and build more prisons. Nah, they can just fine them out of their profits. Like the mob, if they want protection, they have to pay. More proof that chances are you break some law everyday, and the only real role of government now is to make everyone law breakers. These people must be a threat to society for the crime of trying to put food on the table. The moral decay of our society is shocking. Don’t you know if there is a law, it means you are immoral if you break it?

Along with the rising number of home shops come complaints. Code-enforcement officers in Gilbert, Ariz., 20 miles outside Phoenix, received a complaint in October about a fishy smell and flies around a town garage.

The “guy had 50 40-gallon fish tanks full of live fish that he delivered to pet stores,” recalled Michael Milillo, the town’s senior planner. The resident said he previously had a warehouse for his fish, but that to reduce costs in the downturn, he moved them to his garage, according to Mr. Milillo.

While Gilbert does allow home-based businesses, code officers thought the fish entrepreneur was running a home-based warehouse, which isn’t permitted. They moved to close it, but a town zoning board narrowly agreed—over Mr. Milillo’s objections—to allow the business, partly based on the resident’s claims that the storage was a temporary solution in a rough economic climate, Mr. Milillo said.

The resident’s employer, Tropaquatics Inc., declined to make him available for an interview.

Not only are municipalities becoming sympathetic to home-business owners, but many neighbors are, too. While one neighbor spoke at the Gilbert zoning meeting against the fish operation, 10 others said it wasn’t causing any problems and should be allowed to remain given the tough times.

“Seeing everything they’ve gone through with having to move from a big warehouse because of the economy and bring their business back into their garage—that’s the only thing that’s kept them alive. If that’s what they need to do to keep the business thriving, and it’s not endangering my family or causing any unwanted stress on our house, than I am all for it,” said neighbor Matthew Tidwell, a 34-year-old corporate-relations representative.

Go figure, one busy body stirring up trouble. The surprising thing was 10 people coming to stick up for the guy. Usually only the busy body has time to go to the zoning meetings. Other people actually have work to do. I guess the busy body couldn’t just go over to the guys garage and talk to him, ask him if there is a way to minimize the smell, or how long he plans on being in the garage. Maybe he did, but considering how busy bodies operate, I doubt it. Instead he figured, he’d use the gun of government to point it as his neighbor, who is just trying to get by. Apparently, it would be better for the guy to go out of business and live off the state.

Ok, time for the most horrendous case of a home owner causing such chaos with her evil business.

In Nashville, the lightning rod was a beauty parlor. Code-enforcement officers paid a visit to Dot Moon, a 61-year-old woman who, with her daughter, runs a shop with one chair and a tanning bed out of her detached garage. A small sign with a pair of scissors and a comb and the name “Crystal’s Hair and Tans” hangs from her mailbox.

Ms. Moon said she was told a few months ago that she was in violation of city codes because customers came to the house. “We don’t understand why they are picking on us,” she said.

Mr. Bernhardt, the city planning director, said that under current city rules, “it’s impossible to have a hair salon” in a home in a residential neighborhood. He said cases such as Ms. Moon’s are being considered as city officials look at loosening the rules.

Nashville Councilman Bruce Stanley proposed a narrow expansion of the city code to allow for home beauty parlors. Nashville’s Planning Commission rejected that idea in January as being unfair to other businesses. But realizing that more and more of these living-room operations are cropping up, the City Council has since begun work on broader rules for home-based businesses in residential areas.

Oh the traffic and noise must have been overbearing. I can only imagine who much traffic and noise was generated by this gigantic 1 chair and 1 tanning bed salon. Oh and the blight of the neighborhood must have been horrible with the small sign hanging on the mailbox.

Sara Marie Jenkins, who is 26 and designs bridal gowns in her home studio in Nashville, says “financially it helps a lot to work at home in this economy—not having to pay rent for a space or pay a second electric bill.”

Sara… Sara….Sara, but who are you to decide what is financially in your best interest. You are just a serf, and should do what your overlords tell you to do. Your family’s well being is not of concern to their master plan for the community. If you have to live off the state, that is better than you having a business that provides for you financially and provides value through your products and services to your community. Oh Sara, so naive you are.

via States Revisit Home-Businesses Rules – WSJ.com.

Ok, I probably tried putting too much sarcasm into text, which usually doesn’t come across right when I do it. Anyway, when are people going to wake up and realize we do not need government telling us how to live every aspect of our lives. Not only does it create unemployment, but it creates a community of adversaries. Do you think communities were closer when we had less government, and they worked problems out themselves; or do you think they are closer and more involved with each other, now that the government gun is laying around for everyone to try and get a hold of to impose their wishes on their neighbors?

We also need to wake up to realize most government rules are idiotic. They should be ignored by the masses. Saying you cannot have a business in your house goes against all three components mentioned by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence,  as well as the edited out part of “right to property”.  Liberty is taken away by every government rule and action. Pursuit of happiness is taken away if you cannot pursue commerce to put food on the table, and life is hard to have a right to when you can’t provide for yourself. Oh sure, the state can take care of you, but do you then have control of you life? Do you have a right to your life or does the state?

Last is “right to property”. This has been taken long ago with local property taxes and zoning codes. Like I said, you are a renter of your land and you will agree to pay on time or pay a late fee, and you will only use “your” property based on your lease agreement, which unlike a regular leases changes at the whim of local zoning boards and the like.

Nick Gillespie was on Stossel and got into a heated exchange with a lady who thinks she knows how to live your life better than you do. Underlying her entire argument is that you do not have the right to choose what to eat or what is best for you. You gave up that right when our government decided they had a role in our health care system. While food is the main focus, if we have socialized health care for all, this will spread into every aspect of our lives.

YouTube – Nick Gillespie pwns Blond Health Nazi.

Just the other day I was having a discussion with my dad, where I said I don’t trust either party. I  said both parties want to take our liberties and control us. They are both bought and paid for by some special interest group. To this, my dad said I was becoming too cynical. In typical Neo-con fashion, he told me how evil the Democrats are and how Republicans are so much better.

A couple days later, I come across Bob Murphy’s post highlighting how George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a Republican and a “anti-war” Democrat, can care less about our Constitution. Despite the Bill of Rights, they believe all they have to do is label someone a terrorist, and they have the right to imprison the person without cause or trial. Now to take it one step further, they have the right to kill that person (could be you one day) based on their judgement alone. All they have to do is label you a terrorist or say you are helping terrorists and put you on their “hit list”. Considering how horrible they are at the no fly list, I hate to see how this list pans out.

Here’s Bob’s post.

What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?

I was having lunch with someone today (name being withheld in case he doesn’t want this broadcast) and we were musing over the contradiction in the average American’s mind. On the one hand, if you asked Americans to rate professions in terms of their morality or decency, politicians would come in at or near dead last, and if they beat out lawyers, that wouldn’t be much help–most politicians are lawyers.

But at the same time, when it comes to the life-and-death decisions that U.S. politicians make, most Americans give them the benefit of the doubt–often ridiculously so. Sure, they might have made a mistake in, say, invading Iraq, but it really was always about protecting Americans and freeing Iraqis from a brutal thug. The CIA guys just goofed, that’s all.

So anyway, my buddy asked something like, “At what point are Americans going to wake up and realize they can’t trust their government?”

My answer, “When it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”

Note that I wasn’t just trying to say something dramatic, at which point the snare drums kick in and lightning cracks in the background. I meant it quite seriously: The people in charge have to keep up appearances so long as it’s necessary for the overwhelming majority to actually trust that the system basically works. In contrast, in more totalitarian regimes, a large portion of the population knows full well that the rulers are evil, and they are kept in place by fear and helplessness. (They also might think there are no better alternatives.)

So with that in mind, let’s quote from today’s post by Glenn Greenwald. We have already learned that Americans won’t revolt–heck, won’t even vote against an incumbent–just because of worldwide CIA secret prisons and systematic torture of POWs. OK fine. What about this?

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest today reports that “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people.”…

But buried in Priest’s article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret “hit list” of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed…

Read the full post at Free Advice: What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?.

So back to the question Bob posed in his title, “What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?”  I am hoping that people are waking up to what our government has become, a corrupt, over grown, oppressive government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers.

It’s funny how people like my dad (his counterparts on the left do the same thing) will ascribe the most horrendous intentions to Democrats (some are justified), but he does not see the intentions of the Republicans. When I mentioned this article to him today and how easy it would be to label anyone a terrorist, he said, “Yeah, I can’t see that ever really happening.” Do you think it is just coincidence that our government found the perfect boogie man to get US citizens to give up their liberty, condone the suspension of habeas corpus and now kill off Americans at the President’s behest?

Like I said in my post about us living in the real world Matrix, this Democrat vs Republican scam is setup to get people to ignore what is really happening. By cheering on your team, you become too invested in winning to notice your team has the same intentions. Both teams want to take your liberty, enslave you to Washington and Wall Street, and all the while make you think it’s your choice.

So are you really free just because you get to choose between one party or the other, but you get the same result from both? Imagine if I said the following to you.  “You are free, baby. I don’t want to take your rights away. You are free to choose. I don’t care what three days a week you work for me, it’s your choice. Oh, and don’t worry about this gun pointed at you. It’s here to protect you from those evil people trying to harm what we got going on here. You sure are a lucky sum bitch to have me here protecting you like this. Ok, decide which days and get to work. I know I had to shoot one of our workers, but he was helping those evil people. I just know it. It was completely justified. Trust me.”

Would you still think you are free?

This is a must read. Click the link at the end to read the entire article. It is definitely worth the time.

I’m finding it ever more difficult to describe to people the kind of world that the Mises Institute would like to see, with the type of political order that Mises and the entire classical-liberal tradition believed would be most beneficial for mankind.

It would appear that the more liberty we lose, the less people are able to imagine how liberty might work. It is a fascinating thing to behold.

* People can no longer imagine a world in which we could be secure without massive invasions of our privacy at every step, and even being strip-searched before boarding airplanes, even though private institutions manage much greater security without any invasions of human rights;

* People can no longer remember how a true free market in medical care would work, even though all the problems of the current system were created by government interventions in the first place;

* People imagine that we need 700 military bases around the world, and endless wars in the Middle East, for “security,” though safe Switzerland doesn’t;

* People think it is insane to think of life without central banks, even though they are modern inventions that have destroyed currency after currency;

* Even meddlesome agencies like the Consumer Products Safety Commission or the Federal Trade Commission strike most people as absolutely essential, even though it is not they who catch the thieves and frauds, but private institutions;

* The idea of privatizing roads or water supplies sounds outlandish, even though we have a long history of both;

* People even wonder how anyone would be educated in the absence of public schools, as if markets themselves didn’t create in America the world’s most literate society in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This list could go on and on. But the problem is that the capacity to imagine freedom – the very source of life for civilization and humanity itself – is being eroded in our society and culture. The less freedom we have, the less people are able to imagine what freedom feels like, and therefore the less they are willing to fight for its restoration.

This has profoundly affected the political culture. We’ve lived through regime after regime, since at least the 1930s, in which the word freedom has been a rhetorical principle only, even as each new regime has taken away ever more freedom.

Now we have a president who doesn’t even bother to pay lip service to the idea of freedom. In fact, I don’t think that the idea has occurred to Obama at all. If the idea of freedom has occurred to him, he must have rejected it as dangerous, or unfair, or unequal, or irresponsible, or something along those lines.

To him, and to many Americans, the goal of government is to be an extension of the personal values of those in charge. I saw a speech in which Obama was making a pitch for national service, the ghastly idea that government should steal 2 years of every young person's life for slave labor and to inculcate loyalty to leviathan, with no concerns about setting back a young person’s professional and personal life.

How did Obama justify his support of this idea? He said that when he was a young man, he learned important values from his period of community service. It helped form him and shape him. It helped him understand the troubles of others and think outside his own narrow experience.

Well, I’m happy for him. But he chose this path voluntarily. It is a gigantic leap to go from personal experience to forcing a vicious national plan on the entire country. His presumption here is really taken from the playbook of the totalitarian state: the father-leader will guide his children-citizens in the paths of righteousness, so that they all will become god like the leader himself.

To me, this comment illustrates one of two things. It could show that Obama is a potential dictator in the mold of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, for the presumptions he puts on exhibit here are just as frightening as any imagined by the worst tyrants in human history. Or, more plausibly, it may be an illustration of Hannah Arendt’s view that totalitarianism is merely an application of the principle of the “banality of evil.”

With this phrase, Arendt meant to draw attention to how people misunderstand the origin and nature of evil regimes. Evil regimes are not always the product of fanatics, paranoids, and sociopaths, though, of course, power breeds fanaticism, paranoia, and sociopathology. Instead, the total state can be built by ordinary people who accept a wrong premise concerning the role of the state in society.

If the role of the state is to ferret out evil thoughts and bad ideas, it must necessarily become totalitarian. If the goal of the state is that all citizens must come to hold the same values as the great leader, whether economic, moral, or cultural, the state must necessarily become totalitarian. If the people are led to believe that scarce resources are best channeled in a direction that producers and consumers would not choose on their own, the result must necessarily be central planning.

via The Misesian Vision by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr..

Here’s a sliver of good news on the health care front.

Senate Democrats on Monday evening dropped a plan to expand Medicare, winning the support of moderates and the reluctant acquiescence of liberals, in another major step toward building enough support to pass a health-care overhaul.

The idea of letting people ages 55 to 64 buy into Medicare, announced just last week, had threatened to explode the Democrats’ hopes of getting a bill through the Senate when Sen. Joseph Lieberman came out against it.

via Democrats Drop Plan to Expand Medicare – WSJ.com.

While I don’t believe this prevents the government from create a disastrous government health care program, it is still good news. The problem now is the debate has already been framed, and it’s been framed by socialists. The debate is between health care reform and the status quo, and you know the status quo just means you hate people. The problem is government cannot reform the private sector. If the government was not involved in health care, reform would not be needed. Resources would be properly allocated, which would mean they would be allocated where they are needed the most at the least cost.

All this talk about health care reform by socialist pigs makes me sick. The only reform we need to fix health care is government reform. It needs to be reformed back into a limited government that protects liberty. That is all that needs done to fix most of our societal ills. The rest can be figured out by free people.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 10 Senate Democrats have decided the fate for all of us as far as far as health care insurance goes. You will buy what you are told, because after all you live in a democracy (once a republic).

WASHINGTON — Senior Senate Democrats reached tentative agreement Tuesday night to abandon the government-run insurance plan in their health-overhaul bill and to expand Medicare coverage to some people ages 55 to 64, clearing the most significant hurdle so far in getting a bill that can pass Congress.

So Democrats dropped the government-run insurance plan, but expanding a government run insurance plan? Considering our aging population and people living longer (for now anyways), it’s not hard to see that a majority of our country eventually falling under a government plan. Do you think they aren’t going to try to expand this further?

The agreement capped several days of high-stakes negotiations by a group of 10 Democratic senators — five moderates and five liberals. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) had advanced a bill that would have had the government directly operate a health-insurance plan, while giving states the right to opt out.

I love this. In our supposed Republic, we are forcing 1/6th of our economy under government control because of  5 liberals and 5 moderates. Who’s to say they are moderate? I guess they are moderate socialists. Wow, that makes me feel better. Moderate socialists are the ones protecting our liberty, so you can sleep well tonight.

In place of that, the senators embraced a more limited proposal that would empower the government’s Office of Personnel Management to put in place a new low-cost national health plan, congressional aides said. The office already administers plans offered to federal employees and members of Congress. The new national plan would be run by nonprofit entities set up by the private sector, and would be available to the public on the new insurance exchanges that would be created under the bill

If no private insurers sign up with the Office of Personnel Management to offer a national plan, the office would be authorized to implement a direct government-run plan, an unlikely prospect, aides said.

Didn’t they say they got rid of the government option? Instead they are going to have the government setup national plans and have them ran by non-profits? Sure sounds the same to me, except more corruption. Who’s going to pick the non-profits? Hey, isn’t ACORN a non-profit?

So here is where the government run plan comes in. If no private insurers sign up for the government designed national plan, then the government will create the plan itself. Despite what “aides” say, I would say it’s likely that no private insurers will sign up. Look at what working with the government has done with the banks. You sign up with them, you are going to do what you arer told, and what you are told changes at their discretion. How can a private insurance company plan for the future under conditiosn like that? Even if private insurers do sign up, it is no different than other quasi-government institutions like Fannie Mae, Amtrack or the Post Office. They will be ran into the ground, and we’ll be paying for them anyways. The politicians will setup the rules, so they will not be ran as a private institution.

The arrangement is attractive to Democratic centrists who worry about the government’s growing footprint in the private market.

Can this sentence be any more disengenous? So called centrist are worried about the growing government footprint in the private market? They sure have a funny way of showing it. Let’s see, TARP, Government Motors, bailouts, stimulus bills, newspaper bailouts, and oh this massive ass health care takeover.

In a nod to Democratic liberals still intent on expanding coverage, the group agreed to a proposal that would open Medicare, the health-insurance program for the elderly, to Americans ages 55 to 64. The proposal would benefit an estimated two million to three million Americans who have difficulty obtaining coverage elsewhere, including those who have lost their jobs. People in the 55-to-64 group who already get health insurance through their employers would continue to do so under the proposal.

Republicans criticized the Democratic negotiations. “What’s becoming abundantly clear is that the majority will make any deal, agree to any terms, sign any dotted line that brings them closer to final passage of this terrible bill,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.).

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said expanding Medicare “is putting more people in a boat that’s already sinking.”

The American Medical Association said it opposes expanding Medicare because doctors face steep pay cuts under the program and many Medicare patients are struggling to find a doctor. Hospitals also said expanding Medicare and Medicaid is a bad idea.

“We want coverage — in the worst way — expanded, but both of these means are problematic for hospitals and physicians,” said Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, which lobbies on behalf of for-profit hospitals. “It’s going to make it difficult to make it work.”

Well, I guess the AMA can go screw themselves now. They had to back the Democrats health care bill before, and what do you know, it’s come back to bite them in the ass. Should have heeded my warning about making a deal with the devil.

The legislation is designed to extend insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans. It would create new tax subsidies to help low- and middle-income people comply with a mandate to purchase coverage.

It would also bar insurers from engaging in a range of practices, such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and Senate Democrats were considering adding to those restrictions.

Under discussion among Senate Democrats was a proposal that would require insurance companies to spend no less than 90% of the insurance premiums they take in on health services, effectively limiting how much they can reap in profit. The health bill the House passed last month contains a similar provision, though it sets the minimum at 85%.

Aides cautioned that the accord reached Tuesday could be reopened if the CBO identifies major problems. Moreover, other issues, such as proposals to control the rapid growth of health costs, may still need to be negotiated over the next few days.

But if Mr. Reid has his way, he could begin the process of shutting off debate late this week. That would set the stage for another test on the Senate floor early next week that will demonstrate whether he has 60 votes for the bill. Final passage could come late next week.

via Senators Strike Health Deal – WSJ.com.

The government take over plan is so obvious. Expand, expand and expand the government programs in place. Then restrict, regulate and starve private insurance out of existence. The so called moderates like Joe Lieberman know better. They are just trying to save face when they hand over our liberty.

This bill is going to pass, so I hope we are all ready for it. We can only hold out hope now for public outrage next year to the extent that we elect enough new congress people that will then overturn all these government takeovers. They will need a veto proof majority, which is not going to be easy. Hopefully, insurance premiums adjust quickly and people feel it in their pocketbooks. If insurance premiums reflect the new costs imposed, people will notice it. They will be pissed off, and they will not have the government options until 2013. Hopefully, that will drive enough people to the polls to elect some real politicians who believe in freedom.

If you have not read my previous post, Thanksgiving, Statism and Life Outside the Matrix, you may want to do so first. This will be my first post where I will challenge the assumption of public education, which is what provides us our programming to live within the Matrix.

As I said in my previous post, both sides of the Matrix structure argue about how to best improve public education. One argues for more money. The other argues for more localized control. Neither side questions the existence of government controlled education, the results over the long term, or whether we’d be better off with no government education.

To start, why do statists claim we need a public school system? They claim that all children need an education, and only government can make sure all children regardless of race, class, and gender receive an education. That sounds reasonable, but are the children, especially the poor really getting educated? According to The Daily Beast, 7,200 students drop out every day. In some cities (usually ran by socialists), it’s even worse. In Detroit, only 25% of students graduate. According to CNN, the nationwide dropout rate is 16% or over 6 million students.

Every single school day, more than 7,200 kids, on average, drop out of high school—1.3 million each year. In many American cities, including Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, New York and Minneapolis, most public school students don’t graduate. In Detroit, the unhappy poster child for American industrial decline, a study from last year showed that a mere quarter of students earn high school diplomas.

via America’s Dropout Crisis – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.

Nearly 6.2 million students in the United States between the ages of 16 and 24 in 2007 dropped out of high school, fueling what a report released Tuesday called “a persistent high school dropout crisis.”

The total represents 16 percent of all people in the United States in that age range in 2007. Most of the dropouts were Latino or black, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Alternative Schools Network in Chicago, Illinois.

via ‘High school dropout crisis’ continues in U.S., study says – CNN.com.

As you can see, the groups most affected by the dropout rate are the groups that socialists claim to champion. Students are dropping out left and right, which does not provide them many options for the future. Then again, why worry? We have a “safety net”. You know if you don’t go to school, you can at least live off the government dole. On top of that, you can partake in criminal activity and receive tax free income. “Cash only please for all drug and stolen good purchases”.

“Yeah, OK Prof, but literacy was horrendous.” Well, let’s take a look at the “improving” literacy. As we all know, slaves were systematically prevented from learning to read and becoming educated, so we can’t really count their literacy under slavery. We can look at how quickly they became literate after slavery ended.

Although the black literacy rate soared from 20% in 1850 to nearly 80% in 1890, blacks were still having a difficult time finding work.

via ljonespage4content.

Wow, that’s damn impressive. Black literacy reached 80% in 1890. Well, what is it now? Hmmm, under our socialized, secular government ignorance programs, it stands at about 60%.

Six decades later, at the end of the twentieth century, the National Adult Literacy Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress say 40 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites can’t read at all. Put another way, black illiteracy doubled, white illiteracy quadrupled.

via Intellectual Espionage – John Taylor Gatto.

White literacy was near 100% at the beginning of the 20th century, and as you can see, it is now at about where the formers slaves were in 1890. According to John Quincy Adams, only 4/10ths of 1 percent of New Englanders were illiterate. Also, I think everyone would agree the books that were read back then were much more challenging.  Isn’t progress wonderful?

How about math and science scores? Well, according to international testing, American children are not what they used to be. The bad news is the longer they are in school, the worse they get.

At science and math, American students trail those in other advanced democracies. The longer students are in school, the worse things get. Among fourth graders, U.S. students rank high on the International Test of Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Despite this head start, by eighth grade, American adolescents have slipped to the midpoint on the TIMSS; by age 17, their scores trail all but those in a few developing countries

via Hoover Institution – Hoover Digest – The Decline and Fall of American Education.

So as you can see, the public schools in our country have failed as all government planned goods and services do. The debate then goes straight to “how do we make them better?” This is the debate that rages inside the statist Matrix. Both sides argue back and forth about how to improve it. The cheerleaders hooray their side and boo the other side, and it’s completely incomprehensible to them that maybe the government should not be forcing people into government schools. All coercive monopolies are bad, and government is a coercive monopoly. If you do not believe so, try to “choose” to keep your children out of government approved schooling. See how long before you go to jail.

What is the solution? Well, let’s start off by agreeing that we should not stick a gun to people’s heads and tell them they are either going to send their children to government schools, or else they will go to jail. Can we agree that is the moral thing to do? I’m sure some will argue that some parents just are too stupid to make sure their kids get educated, so government must stick a gun to your head. The argument goes that because a small group isn’t responsible with their children, the government should stick a gun to everyone’s head and force their kids into public schools. Pro-government school people argue it’s child abuse to not let your child get an education, but then have no problem with the abuse government schools are inflicting on our children at increasing rates as the statistics above show. Let’s not even get into the lunch programs they inflict on children.

Next, let’s let people choose how they want their kids to be educated. If you do not want to send your child to a government school, there is no reason you should have to pay for government schools plus a private school. Do you think this has something to do with why poorer students are worse off? Their parents cannot afford to pay for public and private schools, so they suck it up and send them off the the ignorance factories. You should be able to keep your money. At the very least, you should be able to take your tax dollars to the school of your choice.

Then the government should allow the free market to deliver education options. They should not set standards, because their standards are pretty much useless. They deliver horrible results. Private schools will have to deliver to the parent’s liking, or they will automatically be punished with lost tuition. Government, on the other hand, has no accountability. If you don’t like the results, you still pay for it. If you try not to pay for it, well you know what happens.

Why is it so hard to imagine a world without public schools? It’s hard to imagine because it’s part of your programming. You were brought up in public schooling and taught that you must have public schools. It’s like most of society in the early 1800s, who couldn’t comprehend how former slaves and former slave masters could live in the same society if slavery was abolished.  Instead of admitting it was immoral, abolishing the institution, and letting free men figure their own way out of it, the government legalized slavery every step of the way. They couldn’t see outside the Matrix in which they were living. If the government had not enforced slavery through fugitive slave laws, it’s hard to believe slavery would have lasted long at all. It would have cost plantation owners too much money to chase slaves down when they escaped. They were only able to do so, because government (really the tax payer) ate the cost of chasing them down and returning them. It would have actually been cheaper for plantation owners to hire the slaves or any other workers had they not forced the cost of fugitive slave laws on the society as a whole. What I am saying here is just because you can’t imagine something other than government schools, because you have been programmed to only see it that way, doesn’t mean it’s not possible and better.  When men are free to make choices in their best interest, society progresses more quickly. It is not happenstance that the least regulated areas in our life are all the fast growing and evolving areas, and there is no reason education cannot be the same.

It’s very easy to see how education if unleashed from government shackles could quickly skyrocket in the success it delivers. It’s not hard to envision bountiful options to meet the needs of all children. Does your child excel in math? How about a school that focuses on math, engineering, and computers? Has your child always loved being the center or attention? How about a school that focuses on the arts? Does your child love to fix things and find out how they work? How about a tech school? Do you want your child to focus on reading, writing, and math? How about an elementary school that focuses exclusively on fundamentals? Does your child have special needs? How about a school that specializes in teaching kids with the same needs as your child? Does your child have many interests? How about a school that brings in great teachers from around the country via video conferencing? Better yet, if your child goes to any of the other schools mentioned, how about those schools bringing in the best teachers in their focused area via video? How about sending your child to a school whose competitive advantage is small class sizes? How about a retired NASA scientist being able to teach students without a teaching degree? How about parents, who know their kids best, deciding what school is best for their child. It is not hard to imagine options and schools opening all over the place.

Why would so many schools open? Because there are greedy profiteers out there, and guess what. They have to deliver a quality service in the private sector. According to the 2007 census, the average cost per student in public schools was $9,000. Do you think for one second there wouldn’t be businesses competing for that $9,000 per pupil and driving the cost down? It happens in every other sector of our economy. Well, it does until the government gets jealous and decides to jump into the game.

While I’m sure the diehard statists can never imagine education without Uncle Sam forcing us into a one size fits none system, I hope some of you question your assumptions about our supposed need for public schools. Hopefully, when you hear politicians debating more funding for education, higher national standards, or any other top down school program, you will question it more deeply. You will ask why they would do that in the first place. How does that open up choices? Does not having choices provide better results? Who benefits from this?

Take the Red pill, and ask yourself, “If I could disregard all laws related to education, what would I choose for my child or for myself when I was a child? Would I send them to government schools, or would I send them to schools who must prove themselves in order to get my money?”

PS. Please ignore all spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. I learned those in public school.

You can pretty much say goodbye to the days of ever increasing advances with the internet. Everyday there are more and more articles about government involvement. Eventually the debate will switch from should they be involved, to which policy is best. Once that happens, you are back to the “head or gut” question.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission began to lay the groundwork for a bigger federal role in the broadband business Wednesday, outlining the hurdles the U.S. needs to overcome to improve the availability of high-speed Internet access.

The FCC identified a number of issues the government should address, including the high cost of laying new broadband lines in rural areas, a lack of airwaves for wireless Web access and ill-informed consumers.

“This focus on broadband is a reflection of a recognition that the U.S. is lagging behind,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday at the agency’s monthly meeting.

The FCC is drafting a National Broadband Plan, which will lay out ways the government can improve broadband service in the U.S. The plan is scheduled to come out in February, and it’s uncertain how many of its suggestions will ultimately be adopted. Already, some big cable and telecommunications companies are concerned the agency wants to impose rules that could undermine their business strategies and profitability.

via Bigger U.S. Role in Broadband Is Likely – WSJ.com.

Why is this such a big damn issue? No one in the public is demanding it. The government is going to tell us why we are lacking broadband?

Notice one issue they claim is the cost of laying new line in rural areas. So the rest of us who live in more populated areas have to pay for someone’s internet who decides to live out in the boonies. That’s just great. More of the majority paying for the minority. Besides, satellite already delivers this, but this is the problem when the government looks at a “problem”. It’s not that they don’t have the ability to get internet, it’s that they don’t have it by means of cables under the ground. You always get a misidentification of the problem (in this case there is no problem) when you have central planning. Satellite used to be fast only on download, and it was still dialup for the upload. Now you have it fast in both directions. This is what is called innovation. But you can’t have that. We all need it by wire.

Next is the lack of airwares for wireless. In this case, just as all cases where the government controls something, you have scarcity created by the government. If the airwaves were owned or handled by the private sector, they would be used for their best use. If people were demanding more airwaves for wireless, then it would happen. Instead politics is entering into it (PBS is not happy about it).

Next, the government falls back to it’s default position. The people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them. The people are too dumb to realize they don’t need 100mbs broadband to every house like Japan has. Who cares if Japan has 100mbs to every house. Are they better off than us overall because of it? Are we harmed by only having 20mbs, when we decide that is all we need at the cost that it’s delivered at? My 93 year old grandma shouldn’t have her phone bill raised when she doesn’t even know what the internet is.

We are told we are lagging behind. This is just like the “keep up with the Jones” mentality of the consumer. It’s not that we truly need 100mbs broad band. It’s that someone else has it. It’s not fair. Didn’t we learn our lesson over the past decade with this mentality? Again, I say, why do we think things are so different at a governmental level than they are on a personal level. If keeping up with the Jones is bad personally, it is bad governmentally.

The government is creating an illusion of lack of supply. If there was more demand and not enough supply, prices of broadband would be increasing. As we all know, broadband is constantly decreasing in prices. Thanks to the free market and technological innovation, supply is increasing faster than demand. When that happens, prices go down, as they have. So, why are we even looking at this? We’ve already established we have more supply than demand. Who is benefiting from this? Could it be some of the big businesses that bought and paid for your politicians? Could it be Big Brother? It sure in the hell isn’t you. You aren’t even demanding it.

This morning on Morning Joe, they had on NBC’s medical expert to discuss the government’s medical panel’s recommendation that women should wait till they’re 50 for mammograms, and then only get them every two years.

So the death panels are not real? This is your death panel. If government controls health care, either this task force or some other central planning board will decide these type of issues based on cost. No panel can be independent when it is funded by the government. Also, their answer has to have a question. What was the question? Who posed the questions, and why? If I tell my wife, we need to cut our coffee budget by $50 a month, she is going to look and say, “well we really don’t need to have a cup of coffee after lunch, so I’d say we only have coffee in the morning going forward. That should reduce our cost.” This is similar to how this is being decided. We only have so much money for health care (thanks to the government), so do we really need to start mammograms at 40? Is the extra cost worth the saved lives? Under government controlled health care, the value of your life will be determined by these boards, or as Sarah Palin correctly called them, death panels.

I love how this lady starts putting down the Susan G. Komen charity.  Apparently, she doesn’t know what freedom is all about. No one is forcing people to donate time and money to this charity. People who have been touched by breast cancer donate to fight breast cancer. This is what real compassion is all about. Of course, that is great until it interferes with government policy. Now, she decides to turn it into greed.

Next, she says, (paraphrasing) “This is rationing. We ration food, sleep, etc.” Yes that is true, but we ration it based on our own personal choices and needs. The government does not force rationing. We decide what foods we want based on the money we have and the need we want to fulfill. This is how the free market works, and why you don’t need a government agency telling you how often you can eat meat (oh this did happen when the government controlled the economy during WWII). Only government creates unnecessary rationing.

When talking about rationing, she says, “Let’s take money to invest in ‘new treatment tools’” OK, this is silly. Treatment only matters if you are identified first, so they don’t do you any good if you aren’t getting tested. Also, who is the government to decide where money should be invested. If there is demand for mammograms by women, then it should be up to the woman and the doctor where that money should be invested. Are we to believe that companies aren’t investing in new technologies when there are so many people touched by breast cancer and so much money flooding into fighting breast cancer? If there is a need, the market will meet it.

But to her, this is “smart health care rationing”. I’m sure the Soviets and the Chinese thought they were doing smart rationing as well when tens of millions died of starvation. The problem is you can’t have a person or group of people who aren’t party to the transaction being the decider of rationing. Rationing is done by consumers and suppliers based on needs and pricing.

You have to love how compassionate she is about it though. It only saves 1 out of 2000 she says.  I guess one person doesn’t count. Joe has a great point. If that’s your relative, you don’t care if it’s only one out of two million. Also, this is voluntary. If it saves only one in 500,000, who cares as long as people want to get mammograms and doctors are willing to provide the service. Oh wait, that’s right. It is against the public good once government takes over health care. Also, what they are saying is confusing. It isn’t one life is saved out of 2000. It is one person is identified out of 2000 to have cancer. That does not sound too bad to me. Hopefully, it will eventually be only one out of 10,000. This has to be one of the most stupid reasons for not having mammograms. “Not enough people have cancer, so we shouldn’t check.” The government doesn’t mind when the poor spends hundreds of dollars per month on the lottery when their chances are one in millions. Oh, but that benefits the government . Never mind.

Then she talks about we don’t scan for these other things till 50 like colon and prostate cancer. So what. Could that be because those don’t normally occur till 50, and because maybe men just aren’t as prudent about things like that?

Next she delves off into the sex and the breast. I have no clue what that has to do with whether it’s worth having mammograms that catch cancer early, so I’ll just skip past it before I start blushing.

As with all media, there is no question as to whether the government should even have a role or say in this. Joe Scarborough says “We’ve been able to afford these fiscally(that means government money) in the past, and we just can’t anymore.” I’m sure glad he’s a Republican. He doesn’t even understand the market and that government is creating this shortage. Nor does he realize this is a free society, and the government should have nothing to do with these decisions.

As with all consumer purchases, this is not the place for the government to be involved. It should be up to a woman and her doctor. If a woman wants to get mammograms at 40 and every year, that should be her perogative. This is what I’ve been saying in all my post. If you ask the government to give you something, you give up your liberty. Ask them to pay for your health care, and you give up your right to have  your mammogram.

So, I wonder what’s next?