Where has the alacrity gone?

......yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if government had not sometimes got in its way.
Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience

That is a far cry from the conventional wisdom of today. Paraphrase what David Thoreau said today and you'd be looked at like you are from another world. Then again, the "American People" that Thoreau knew might as well have been, they wouldn't recognize the country they built. I can see them looking around and asking, "What is this 18th century Europe?"

Then again, I have paraphrased about the same thing, the response is "That would never work." Funny, it already had.

The Unintended Consequence of The War on Drugs

Then again, is it unintentional?

The IV Amendment; Repealed in all but Name

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


Except if it's a Health Inspector, Child Protection Service,oh hell, any government offical for that matter. If this doen't make your blood boil, what will?




We hear a lot of Democrats yelling about the lost civil rights due to the Patriot Act, and rightfully so. The again, we used to hear about States Rights from the Republicans. Yet neither side sticks up for individual property owners and their rights, and we can certainly include the Supreme Court in that group. The police work for the government, so who protects you from it?

The Government and its child's Dirty Little Secret

From Congressmen Ron Paul's "Texas Striaght Talk"

Diagnosing our Health Care Woes

September 25, 2006

No one disputes the diagnosis: American health care is in lousy shape. As a practicing physician for more than 30 years, I find the pervasiveness of managed care very troubling.

The problems with our health care system are not the result of too little government intervention, but rather too much. Contrary to the claims of many advocates of increased government regulation of health care, rising costs and red tape do not represent market failure. Rather, they represent the failure of government policies that have destroyed the health care market.

It’s time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies, in an effort to move America toward “free” universal health care.

One big problem arises from the 1974 ERISA law, which grants tax benefits to employers for providing health care, while not allowing similar incentives for individuals. This results in the illogical coupling between employment and health insurance. As such, government removed the market incentive for health insurance companies to cater to the actual health-care consumer. As a greater amount of government and corporate money has been used to pay medical bills, costs have risen artificially out of the range of most individuals.

Only true competition assures that the consumer gets the best deal at the best price possible by putting pressure on the providers. Patients are better served by having options and choices, not new federal bureaucracies and limitations on legal remedies. Such choices and options will arrive only when we unravel the HMO web rooted in old laws, and change the tax code to allow individual Americans to fully deduct all healthcare costs from their taxes, as employers can.

As government bureaucracy continues to give preferences and protections to HMOs and trial lawyers, it will be the patients who lose, despite the glowing rhetoric from the special interests in Washington. Patients will pay ever rising prices and receive declining care while doctors continue to leave the profession in droves.

I can attest to this. I looked into getting a Health Savings Account, and High Deductible Health Insurance; the laws that hamper an individual in obtaining it are ludicrous. Could it be they don't want you to be able to take care of yourself? For your own good of course.

Why can't we get more people like Congressmen Paul to run?

Senator, are You Trying to Back Door Us?

While reading the October 2006 issue of Reason Magazine, I came across a quote from Sen. Hillary Clinton. Since I have yet to hear any reporter ask questions that I would like asked, so I’ll do it.

Senator Clinton, on the 20th of July you stated the following:

“…..at the rate that technology is advancing…people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy.”

Senator, what people will be implanting chips into our children? Will it be by force? And lastly if I may, who has enough power to get away with forcing our children to have implants, besides the government?

I found more quotes on this speech at the New York Daily News.

Saying advertisers have found so many new ways to get at kids through video games and the Internet, Clinton warned that we're verging on a society out of a grim science fiction novel.

Like 1984, Brave New World, or even Fahrenheit 451? In most grim science fiction novels it was not corporations, but government that was the authoritarian.

"At the rate that technology is advancing, people will be implanting”

I figure she meant that advertisers would be putting implants in our children. My question though is how does she think they can do that? Advertisers have no power over our bodies? It is the parent that has control, to some extent, but an advertiser? This is just another example of the Anti-capitalist mindset of socialists. By fear mongering some imaginary enemy, she has consolidated more power over those lacking critical thinking. The above quote also has another point. Where have these kids gotten the video games and access to the inter-net? Once again it’s the evil corporations that have power over the helpless parents. Every year the bar of victim-hood is raised. Now the parents can blame the “media” for the video’s and inter-net access their children have. And instead of asserting any authority over their own children, they look to the government to do it for them.

The New York Democrat said the country was performing a "massive experiment" on kids who average more than six hours a day with media and advertising, soaking it up through TV, computers, games and iPods. She said the fastest growing advertising market is the 6- and under set, and that children's health is already being hurt by products like Camel's candy-flavored cigarettes and junk food sold with tips for video games - used to sell more junk food.

Senator, you stated, “the country was performing a ‘massive experiment’ on kids”, do you then admit that the government has been indoctrinating the children through government mandated schools? After all no one is forced to buy TVs or inter-net access, but with the tax burden put on parents, most are forced to send their children to government run schools.

So this is a health problem? Senator, can you name one thing within a citizen’s personal life that you guarantee will never become a health issue that the Federal Government can intervene in? There are numerous laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors, are you saying Senator, that the federal government is incapable of enforcing the laws congress has enacted already, therefore more laws will help? You also mentioned junk food, are you implying that junk food is a stepping stone to violent video game playing? When will congress enact a law regulating how much junk food it’s subjects, I mean citizens can buy?

Senator recently Professor Robert Thompson at Syracuse University, said you and other politicians like to attack advertising because it's easier than trying to ban bad food products or fund broad education programs, and I quote:

"It's sort of a backdoor tack, but it's the safer one politically."

Senator are you trying to back door us?

Strip Searching School Kids for Their Own Damn Good

If you think that this will not be abused check out Fast times at Goose Creek High. I can see it now police come into your child's High School, Guns at the ready, with latex gloves.


109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5295
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 20, 2006
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
AN ACT
To protect students and teachers.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:

(1) The United States Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics reported in the 2005 Indicators of School Crime and Safety that in 2003 seventeen percent of students in grades 9-12 reported they carried a weapon. Six percent reported having carried a weapon on school grounds.

(2) The same survey reported that 29 percent of all students in grades 9-12 reported that someone offered, sold, or gave them an illegal drug on school property within the last 12 months.

(3) The United States Constitution's Fourth Amendment guarantees `the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures'.

(4) That while the Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Amendment's application to students in public schools in New Jersey vs. TLO (1985), the Court held that searches of students by school officials do not require warrants issued by judges showing probable cause. The Court will ordinarily hold that such a search is permissible if--

(A) there are reasonable grounds for suspecting the search will reveal evidence that the student violated the law or school rules; and

(B) the measures used to conduct the search are reasonably related to the search's objectives, without being excessively intrusive in light of the student's age, sex, and nature of the offense.

(5) The Supreme Court held in Board of Education of Independent Sch. Dist. 92 of Pottawatomie County vs. Earls (2002) that random drug testing of students who were participating in extracurricular activities was reasonable and did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court stated that such search policies effectively serve the School Districts interest in protecting its students' health and safety.

SEC. 3. SEARCHES BASED ON REASONABLE SUSPICION.

(a) In General- Each local educational agency shall have in effect throughout the jurisdiction of the agency policies that ensure that a search described in subsection (b) is deemed reasonable and permissible.

(b) Searches Covered- A search referred to in subsection (a) is a search by a full-time teacher or school official, acting on any reasonable suspicion based on professional experience and judgment, of any minor student on the grounds of any public school, if the search is conducted to ensure that classrooms, school buildings, school property and students remain free from the threat of all weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics. The measures used to conduct any search must be reasonably related to the search's objectives, without being excessively intrusive in light of the student's age, sex, and the nature of the offense.

SEC. 4. ENCOURAGEMENT TO PROTECT STUDENTS AND TEACHERS.

(a) In General- A local educational agency that fails to comply with section 3 shall not, during the period of noncompliance, receive any Safe and Drug Free School funds after fiscal year 2008.

(b) Definition- In this section, the term `Safe and Drug Free School funds' includes any funds under Part A of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Passed the House of Representatives September 19, 2006.

Great Moments in Bureaucrat History (today)

USA Today has a good article on the recent E coli outbreak “Safety advocates, growers debate produce rules” pg 4A. (Sorry couldn’t find article to link it)

Seems there isn’t an answer on how, or even where the E. coli bacteria on lettuce came from yet. They’ve narrowed it down to three farms in California. Growers are trying to figure how and why, along with packers.

Some such as Caroline Smith Dewaal, Safety Director for Center of Science in the Public Interest, are calling to implement strong mandatory procedures like there are in the beef industry. The problem is the beef industry figured out the causes first; the growers and packers of lettuce and spinach have not.

Tim Chelling, a spokesman for Western Growers, is quoted as saying “We’re not doing any kind of knee-jerk reaction to any proposals at this point”. I hope not, what if the action taken actually makes it worse?

Jerry Gillespie of Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at the University of California-Davis, “We want the industry to do things better. But when it comes time to tell them what’s “better” is, it’s very difficult, because we’re not quite sure what they’re doing wrong.”

The FDA weighed in on this in a letter last November, “Claims that ‘we cannot take action until we know the cause’ are unacceptable”. This same agent that signed the memo was later heard saying “Damn it Doctor, I don’t care if you don’t know what’s wrong with me, operate!".

In other news; “Publishers seek recourse after audit slams federal reading program” pg 5A:

Federal officials mismanaged the Reading First program, forcing schools to buy materials the administration favored, including a few to which federal advisers had financial ties.

The FDA agent who survived surgery was transferred to the Education Department, were he was overheard saying, “Damn it, I don’t care if the books are useless, buy them! ”