Friday, October 30, 2009

Natural Rights or are they Natures Right

The process of birth gives us life. Birth is a natural occurrence, not dictated nor made by man. Although some may argue that man initiates or can terminate the process, neither gives man authority over it. In regards to the first, it is nature that drives the man’s natural desires to initiate, but only as a tool; man himself can not will the conception; it is nature that does so. For the later, termination of the process does not give man any authority or credit for it, how could it? He has destroyed it.

Some will insist that it is man’s actions that should be credited to life. However, man can not call to life his offspring; he must bow to nature, for it is nature that provides man his essence of life. The only power man has over life is, again, the destruction of it.

Since it is nature that is the giver of life and life coming from nature, life must be and is natural. Nature having given it and it being natural, nature then has authority over it. This being so, only nature has a right to take it, as it does through the passing of time, disease, and disaster. Man does take life through violence, such as war, either by man vs. man, as some men do, but not all as Hobbes claims; nation vs. nation, and even nation vs. man, a vile practice. Man taking life though is theft; he has no right to what belongs to nature, he has merely raped it.

In the absence of nature actively claiming it’s right to a man’s life, that same life is then the man’s to do as he sees fit with, until his master (nature) demands it. Until his master demands it, it is man who is in possession of it; therefore, it is his own life. In essence, nature has given man his life, which he, man, is then caretaker of; none except the master may dictate how that life is used except the caretaker given responsibility of it. Therefore, no man has authority to dictate to another how he is to live his life.

No man having authority, or “a right” over another’s life, then has authority or “a right” to what comes from that man’s life. Being that a man’s life is his own, all things that derive from that life are his also. All things that are his are then his property, and being no man has authority over another man’s life he then has no authority over his property. No man therefore, has a right to another’s property, whether it is his thought, labor, or possessions. Only man’s master has a right to its possessions and it will claim it either through time, disease, or disaster. If another, mainly man, takes it…..it is nothing more than rape.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Should Bribes be Counted in Total Health Care Refrom Costs?

There seems to be a split among some Senate Democrats about the Health Insurance mandates. An AP article (Click on Title) talks about several “centrists” that may oppose it to maintain their seats past this election cycle.

The thing that struck me though was AP’s comment about some just holding out for “favors” and “pork” for their districts/states.

Now let’s add the cost of the taxpayer funded bribes the Obama administration might likely hand out to hold outs for votes to the total cost of Health Care Destruction. Is this the way it’s really done in Chicago?

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Tariffs are Dangerous to Your Health

While surfing the web I found an article about sugar tariffs. Now limiting the amount of any product that comes into the country always increases the price to the “general public” (of course it protects the few). http://cafehayek.com/2009/09/sourpuss-monopolists.html


The comment sections are almost as interesting as the post itself in most cases. One individual mentions that the tariff on sugar helps the farmers growing corn, since an alternative to sugar is high fructose corn syrup. Another asks if it is healthier or less so than sugar. A couple of comments later states that “Although it’s inconclusive” high fructose corn syrup is thought to contribute to type II diabetes.

This is just another example of the over reaching centrist government’s collusion with a small group of large corporations controlling what its citizens do. First by protecting a small but powerful lobby group, meanly the US sugar industry, it increases the cost to us. Secondly, it distorts the bastardized free market more so than they already have and leads us to use cheaper but less healthy alternatives. Thirdly, the results of the ruling classes meddling are that we see an increase in diabetes.

Finally, to add insult to injury (pun intended) the ruling class now says due, in part, to this diabetes epidemic they must take control of our daily lives more, by legislating more warning labels and indoctrinating the children through state run schools. Ultimately these self appointed guardians of our future will take complete control of the whole Health Care system, because we will not be able to afford it otherwise. Never mind it was their meddling in out lives, protecting the large corporations, starting government run health insurance for the poor and seniors, and regulating all other avenues of health care (to protect us from the large corporate insurance companies) that increased the costs in the first place. Oddly the regulations pushed any small company or non-profits out of the health insurance industry because of the mandated items that MUST be covered.

This all leads me to ask the question, “Are we free, is it a lie, or are we’re just tools they keep alive to maintain the ruling class’ life of luxury and power?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A Comparison to Government Health Care Reform



At least the guy with the gun was a expert in the field.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Cheapened to Worthlessness

“Crack Whore of the Week” or the Nobel Peace Prize, which requires the most accomplishments?

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Shattered Chains (Soap Box Rant I)

“…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law…” Mr. Emiliano Gonzolez was never charged, let alone convicted, but he still looses his life savings. The State gets to keep the $124,700 they seized from the car he rented. Under congress’ Forfeiture Act a drug dog barking at a rental car, used by possibly hundreds of people, is enough evidence to convict his money of drug trafficking.

Continuously reinterpreting and expanding the meaning of the Constitution has weakened our liberties from freedom of speech, association, religion, the right to assemble, assumption of innocents, among others. It has given the police state new liberties, including no-knock-warrants, warrantless phone taps or searches and, as the above victim can verify, assumption of guilt. This is due to an idea that the Constitution is a “living document”, that it is some how outdated or, as others reason, for society to interpret the intent of it. The Constitution as a “living document” is dangerous and has contributed to the erosion of our liberties.

Changes in the meaning of the 5th Amendment have undermined the stability of property rights. At first the words “public use” meant just that, roads, post offices, and government buildings, a little later railroads and utilities where added. Then in 1954 the Supreme Court in Berman v. Parker, unannounced to Mr. Webster, proclaimed the word “use” to mean “purpose” for fighting blight. The loss of protection the 5th Amendment provided the lower classes was only the beginning. Land grabs by gluttonous, cash starved municipalities increased. With each grab the courts allowed additional leeway in the reasoning for it. Some like GM were given older middleclass neighborhoods to build plants, that would supposedly create jobs. Others like Lakewood, Ohio for condominiums or Susette Kelo and her neighbors whose properties are planned to go to the multi-million dollar company Pfizer. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said in the Kelo v New London principal dissent, “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing a Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or an farm with a factory”

Speaking of farms, Roscoe Filburn was fined $1606.08, adjusted for inflation, for having the audacity to grow more wheat then the Secretary of Agriculture gave him permission to. In Wickard v. Filburn the Supreme Court said that Mr. Filburn’s wheat still fell within the interstate commerce clause; not because it went over a state line but since he didn’t have to buy wheat, he affected the supply throughout the US. In theory, this means that if the Secretary of Agriculture feels that the country has too many tomatoes he can ban your grandmothers garden.

Wickard v. Filburn allowed Washington’s tentacles to taint even medicine, reaping needless suffering and, unfortunately, death. Several states have passed medical marijuana laws. This gave glaucoma suffers the ability to see, cancer and other terminal illness victims relief from their pain, and the bodies of AIDs victims the ability to keep down their life saving medications. The Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, once again using the “living document” mentality, declared that the state and its people had no right to decide what was best for them; not because the medicine was transported over state lines but merely because it could be. Peter McWilliams an AIDs and cancer victim, died on June 14, 2000. Unable to hold down the drugs without the marijuana treatment a doctor had prescribed to him but a federal judge had forbidden him to use, he drowned on his own vomit. That same so called pillar of justice had prohibited the defense, in his trial, from telling the jury that Mr. McWilliams needed the marijuana to keep down his medications, or even that it was prescribed by a doctor and legal in California.

The Declaration of Independence states we have “…certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” These rights were not given to us by politicians, judges or a document. They are natural, obtained by our existence, they are our birthright. The framers of the Constitution believed that it was government's duty to protect these rights for us against anyone that would take them away. They also mistrusted men of power, those who as the protectors, could become drunk with power, abuse their positions and become the very ones that they were to protect our rights from. For some time now politicians and judges have ruled over us by using the "living document", saying its meaning can be changed to fit the needs, wants, demands, and even ideology of large, powerful groups. If this is true our “unalienable Rights” are no longer rights protected by the Constitution, but privileges granted or denied us by the courts and the whims of politicians. Tomorrow grandma's garden could be outlawed or the State might decide to give her home to the Seneca Casino and take her pain killers away. Then again, the police might decide her walker can transport drugs and convict it.

Alexander Hamilton feared a democracy leading to politicians catering to the masses at the expense of the individual; Thomas Jefferson feared a strong central government catering to the rich and big business would do the same. To which Jefferson proclaimed, "In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution." The “living document” mentality is shattering the chains that kept the State and politicians from acquiring unlimited power and the Supreme Court keeps hitting it with an ideoligical sledge hammer.

Half Baked Ideas Just Need More Time in the Oven

Looking at the tea parties and ignoring (or taking with a grain of salt) the medias trivializing of, or stereotyping of them, one sees a lot of different ideologies out there. Could this be that the majority of people are dissatisfied with the “lesser of two evils”? With the blatant, sped up centralizing of power and that those not in the so called “left/right” confines of ideologies are starting to realize that neither party is what they truly want.

Being a radical about individual rights, I have a paranoid attitude towards government. It’s kind of funny, that after over a decade in the Marines I’d be leery of the centralized government, but maybe that’s partly why. After all, that’s one of the reasons I got out. We swore to defend, with our lives, the Constitution from “all enemies foreign and domestic.” I started to see the oath as a conflict. Having to defend the Constitution and obeying superiors (Executive and Legislative branches being the highest); but then this is a path of logic for another post; back to the path at hand.

With so many different ideologies opposed, or at least not happy, with the current direction of the country (a.k.a. centralization) what if they/we all banded together for the purpose of “decentralization?” Say a new party not based on economic or moral ideology but based on unpolluted individualism, family, and community, and to a lesser extent state’s rights. If this party were to gain elected seats to oppose the central government and to a lesser extent the state’s power grabs too, would it be able to slow or even reverse the consolidation of power and the strangling of liberty?

Hmmmm….