You don't get what you paid for all the time

I've heard and in the past said, "Government should be run like a business." Problem is business offers their product to individuals on a voluntary basis. If you don't want or don't think the product is worth the cost you can refuse to purchase it. With the government they force you to purchase it, through taxes, then if you don't like it to bad, "Don't use it", no refunds though.

When government makes a product it is, in most cases, inferior to the same product made by a private enterprise; case in point John Deer verses USSR tractors. The picture below tells the story. Can you guess if it was a private venture or government job?



Now do you REALLY want the organization responsible for this quality work messing with your health care more then they already are?

Gun Control, I see the Light Now!

Gun Control: Now that I’ve abandoned my barbaric notions of individualism and have seen the greater good that collective authoritarian statism will usher in, I see no problem with it. Actually, I'm looking forward to all guns being banned. Even though I'll be much safer in my house, my family and I might still fall victim to a knife or sword. And once again we can look to the guiding wisdom of the State for protection.

So I was pleased when I saw the following at a British Police News release:

A number of home-made weapons have been surrendered during the national knife amnesty.

Nails soldered onto a metal bar, specifically cut, highly sharpened blades and knuckledusters were among the weapons handed in.

“These weapons were only made for the purpose of fear and intimidation with the potential of inflicting serious injury, even death - there would be no other reason for their use.” said Sgt Jim Mills at the force’s crime reduction unit.

“We are pleased that the owners’ have been responsible and handed them in. We would urge anyone who has home-made weapons to take the same route and surrender them at one of the designated police stations.”

Tackling knife culture is paramount to the safety of our communities. People who carry bladed weapons run the risk of that weapon being used on them, or inflicting serious injury on others. It also carries a jail sentence of up to four years.

Once the English Police accomplish this just crusade maybe this will be prevented.

I find it upsetting that there are indivuals that still insist in thinking they have a right to weapons. Those who say they have them for their own protection are obviously not thinking rationally. After all, that is what the police are for. One simple call to 911 and within an hour a police officer will show up at your door.(Almost as fast as a dominoes pizza)

We in America have a long way to go before we are as enlightened and civilized as the British. One can only hope that after we have completed the first stage of criminalizing guns, we can move on to the next stage of abolishing the Knife culture also.

I hear the British Police have issued an instruction on how to survive an attack until they arrive. "Lie down and assume the fetal position, so we know who to arrest."

Funny, I thought it be easier. The bloody corps or the man standing over it?

When We Dont Like the Picture Connecting the Dots Make

I really think the Buffalo News could use a weekly opinion column like this:

What's the European response to its self-made economic malaise? They don't repeal the laws that make for a poor investment climate. Instead, through the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they attack low-tax jurisdictions. Why? To support its welfare state, European nations must have high taxes, but if Europeans, as private citizens and businessmen, relocate, invest and save in other jurisdictions, it means less money is available to be taxed.

I think the reason we don't see a colunm like Dr Williams' in WNY is, We just don't like the picture these dots make when connected.

The Founders as "The Time Traveler"

In the Time Machine when the "Time Traveler" saw the future he must have felt repulsed at what humanity had become. Allowing themselves to become hosts for a group of parasites a food supply. Worse yet they accepted it, not even putting up a fight. Could their acceptance have come from a reasoned thought that one's chances of surviving were greater if one or two "others" were taken then if they refused and fought? The ultimate "The wants of the many out weigh the needs of the few", or in modern American "Common Good".

What reminded me of H.G. Wells book was Walter Williams' latest Minority View "WHY WE LOVE GOVERNMENT"

……..Thomas Paine observed, "We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. . . . It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute."……….

…………With sentiments like these, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison became presidents. Could a person with similar sentiments win the presidency today? My guess is no. Today's Americans hold such liberty-oriented values in contempt, and any presidential aspirant holding them would have a zero chance of winning office.

Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.

How repulsed would the Founders be if they were to be transported to present day America? Unlike the "Traveler" would they just turn their backs and say "Your not worthy of our help again".

Milton Friedman; right AGIAN!!!!

Excerpt from Capitalism and Freedom, By Milton Friedman:

In order for men to advocate anything, they must in the first place be able to earn a living. This already raises a problem in a socialist society, since all jobs are under the direct control of political authorities. It would take an act of self-denial whose difficulty is underlined by experience in the United States after World War II with the problem of "security" among Federal employees, for a socialist government to permit its employees to advocate policies directly contrary to official doctrine.

The following is an excerpt from Economist.com on the Venezuela's election:

The opposition's biggest fear concerns the use of fingerprint machines in conjunction with electronic voting. Rightly or wrongly, many Venezuelans believe that because of the machines the vote will not be secret. The government has already made public a list of the several million people who signed the petition calling for the recall referendum, using it to deny jobs and government services to “counter-revolutionaries”. In these circumstances, any belief that the vote might not be secret seems likely to hurt Mr. Rosales.

This brings up several issues:

a. Socialist will crush, by any means, descent yet will demand their right to it.

b. Milton Friedman was right.

c. With our country slowly crawling to a Socialist State, do we really want computers tracking the vote?

d. Milton Friedman was right.

e. Though Ayn Rand's "We the Living" was fictional, she,herself, said if any book was about her life that would be it. The similarities between what she wrote about political descent in early Soviet Union mirrors Venezuela. Now ask yourself: Why is it that socialist leaning Americans are the ones who want the government to have all the guns, and to take them away from the slaves serfs subjects citizens? Why is it that throughout history it is the "welfare of the people" that enslaves those very people?

f. Milton Friedman was right.