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Second Amendment
Second Amendment: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Having been oppressed by a professional army, the founding fathers of the United States had no use for establishing one of their own. Instead, they decided that an armed citizenry makes the best army of all. George Washington created regulation for the aforementioned “well-regulated militia” which would consist of every able-bodied man in the country.
The reason I’m bringing this up has nothing to do with the National Rifle Association but with the fact that we ARE oppressed by a professional army—our own! I wrote about this a few blogs ago in my 800 pound gorilla piece but nagging is profoundly underrated so here I am again, nagging you to do something about this travesty. Do you really enjoy working six months every year and giving every penny you make to support this expense that gives us nothing in return except the hatred of the world? I’m sick of it.
When I point this out to most people they respond by saying that military spending is only 5% of GDP. Why they would use non-standard accounting to justify this stupidity astounds me. GDP is just everybody’s salary—regardless of what they do. GDP means nothing whatsoever, except as a ruse. Military spending consumes over half of our total industrial output! That’s the real truth. We could cut our work week in HALF with no loss of incomes if the military industrial complex would stop oppressing us.
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I was a chief petitioner…
Excerpts from Rolling Stone Magazine, March 2010
…on the Oregon Marijuana Legalization Initiative in 1986. Talk about being ahead of the times. In 1999, when Gary Johnson was still governor of New Mexico, he spent some time examining drug-policy reports, found the evidence for decriminalization compelling and publicly announced his support for legalization — and immediately saw his approval rating plunge from 58 percent to 28 percent, almost overnight.
“I wasn’t blind — I knew that was going to happen,” Johnson says today. “But actually having it happen was something else.” Rather than backtrack or waffle, Johnson took a novel tack: He continued to speak out on the subject. “I vowed to myself to make it to every nook and cranny in New Mexico to explain to people what I was talking about,” he says. “And I ended up leaving office with a 58 percent approval rating. I really see this issue as one of education.” Later, he adds, “There is one segment of the population that is 100 percent against legalizing pot. And that’s elected officials. What I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen is that legalization is a good issue. By good issue, I mean it makes sense. I really believe that, literally, one day all politicians are going to go to bed and get up the next morning and say, ‘Yeah, OK.’ I always say it’s a litmus test for having a brain.”
Repeal of Prohibition is not normally listed as a New Deal jobs program. Still, it happened in 1933, when unemployment had soared to nearly 25 percent, the high point of the Depression. Certainly repeal had some positive economic effects. Alfred Vernon Dalrymple, the National Prohibition Director — the drug czar of his day — predicted in Time magazine that repeal would mean “putting hundreds of thousands of men back to work and…hundreds of thousands of dollars of new business.” And FDR himself — who, in 1937, would be the first president to make marijuana illegal — argued in a 1932 campaign speech in Sea Girt, New Jersey, that “our tax burden would not be so heavy nor the forms that it takes so objectionable if some reasonable proportion of the unaccounted millions now paid to those whose business had been reared upon this stupendous blunder could be made available for the expense of government.”
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The only affordable healthcare insurance…
…is to exercise and eat right. No one can afford remedial healthcare – at any price. At best it will only miserably stretch out your death. I own the federal trademark on the advertising slogan “Exercise and Eat Right.”™ I’ve been in the preventative health business for 30 years. I’m 66 and only see a doctor for my required flight physicals. I wouldn’t go then if I didn’t have to by law.
There are a few things we can do to improve this situation. We could mandate the implementation of sustainable agriculture practices to stop poisoning ourselves. We could ban proven harmful ingredients in prepackaged foods like High Fructose Corn Syrup and Genetically Modified Crops. We could mandate proper nutrition be taught in school. None of these practical solutions are politically feasible however, so it’s up to you to learn what to eat. Food is the new medicine, says Tufts University School of Nutrition but physician training doesn’t even include nutrition. As for exercise, all one has to do is get one’s heart beating fast every day. No end of ways to do that and it takes only one minute.
Physicians are the new priests. People used to pay Physicians of the Soul to relieve their self-induced maladies, or witch doctors. Superstition is still the rule. I think our health would improve dramatically if physicians were restricted to setting broken bones, repairing hernias and gun shot wounds but people have “faith” so most will continue running to the doctor every time they sneeze. Reminds me of what that great enlightment philosopher Denis Diderot said, “The best physician you can run to is the one you can’t find.”
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The Senator from China
The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people too, have first amendment rights like people so can now contribute as much as they want to candidates of their choosing. The ruling also permits foreigners to contribute whatever they want to help us decide what’s best for us. This should be interesting. The people who will actually get all the money, the media, will love it. Think I’ll call Hugo Chavez today; see if he’ll back my run for governor. I might finally get some press attention. But I’m getting off track. “I yield my time to my esteemed colleague from China,” says our esteemed colleague from Boeing…
When are we gonna get it, that a government for sale to anybody is a really bad idea! I have promised to end government for sale in Oregon by Executive Order my first day in office. No contributions, no gifts, no favors, no bribes of any kind will be allowed to choose our elected representatives or influence their legislation. I don’t know if this will actually improve things but things can’t get any worse so why not try something new?
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THE TEA PARTY CROWD:
“I have several “tea bagger” friends, and they are funny. They are against big government but support the creation of the Homeland Security Department and the Transportation Security Administration for $62 billion annually.
They are against deficit spending but support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, projected to cost $3 trillion.
They are against “Wall Street” and “Fat Cats” but they support the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which rescinded key protections within the Glass-Steagall Act, enabling the current financial crisis. They are also against the Federal Reserve (and are clueless as to its purpose) but complain about lack of lending.
They are strict constitutionalists, but they are in favor of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, suspending of habeas corpus, torture, extraordinary rendition, and other Bill of Rights abuses. They are against government control and intrusion, but they support the Patriot Act.
Tea-baggers are amazingly self-contradictory and they really don’t know what they are mad about.
There are no simple solutions to any of the issues we face. However, there are rational approaches that can work with a concerted effort. Sadly, ignorance always has a price.”
Dr. Steve Belovich, Richfield, OH.,
Letter to the editor, The Progressive, March 2010
Can’t add anything to this…
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The government we deserve…
When we condemn congress we’re really just condemning ourselves. We have always had a government for sale to everything but the public interest. Lincoln above all understood this and we’ve been governed by executive orders ever since. The President can do anything his heart desires without the consent of congress, the courts, the constitution or even the people’s will. If we don’t like it we can impeach him but until then, he’s the Captain! Most states, Oregon included, grant their governors the “executive power.” The reason is obvious – every ship needs a Captain in time of trouble. If you don’t think Oregon and the rest of the country is in trouble you haven’t been paying attention.
I have made my intent clear, that if elected I will issue several executive orders my first day in office. Our legislature in Salem is as gridlocked by stubborn ideology as is the one in Washington, DC and therefore, useless. I intend to mostly ignore them and simply do what needs to be done. Here again is the list:
- Pardon all persons ever convicted of a consensual crime.
- Institute publicly funded elections and ban all contributions/gifts to office holders and candidates.
- Found a state bank to make low interest loans to develop Oregon’s infrastructure. http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/but_governor.php
- Institute single-payer legal.
- Fund engaging new interactive PC teaching courses on all subjects to improve learning, starting with math and civics.
- Re-empower juries to judge the law.
- Ban Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).
- Legalize Hemp.
- Eliminate all taxes and fees on businesses. (Businesses don’t pay taxes, they collect them).
That should fix things nicely. I think you deserve it, seriously.
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What are we waiting for???
Back in ’92, as a Chief Petitioner on an Oregon Initiative to close the Trojan Nuclear Plant, I published a full-page treatise in the New York Times and all Oregon newspapers calling for the U.S. to build a solar power infrastructure based on a McDonnell Douglas invention called a GenSet. Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque has been tinkering with it for years to make it slightly more efficient but we could have been installing these things 20 years ago to supply 100% of the nation’s power – at one-tenth the cost of the Middle East wars for oil. Our shuttered auto factories could have been mass-producing these things. Detroit would not have a 50% unemployment rate and we could have eliminated our biggest national security threat, the radioactive fuel pools at commercial nuclear plants.
Oil companies weren’t too keen on this renewable fuel idea since these GenSets can also produce hydrogen gas for our cars and trucks and to heat our homes. Thanks to our lobbyist-controlled government, the public interest doesn’t always coincide with private interest. You can read more on this in Chapters 21 & 22 of my autobiography. Click on the book cover on the right.
A national Apollo type program to create a solar/hydrogen infrastructure would save us from the impending and certain economic collapse of our currency and economy. Worth doing, eh!
It’s time to email your congressman. Send them these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUvxtwJ1OM&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95kmrb-5Ugw&feature=channel
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2008/solargrid.html
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Government by Ponzi
The U.S. budget deficit for 2009 is $1,400,000,000,000. That’s not the budget, that’s the DEFICIT! $1.4 Trillion is $12,600 per family. The interest on this borrowing will cost another $2.8 Trillion over the life of a 30-year T-Bill. This year’s deficit alone will cost our kids and us $37,800; more than the average family earned in 2009. The 2010 deficit is going to be even bigger.
Is this nuts or what? Almost all the deficit spending went to military adventures and government employees. A tiny fraction was put into infrastructure capital, the remainder wasted, gone forever. Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, we should follow his example and kick over the moneychanger’s table. Our moneychanger is the Federal Reserve; that privately owned franchise to legalize usury. Why are we paying interest on our own money! It’s unconstitutional of course but the constitution is whatever the judge says it is even when it says exactly the opposite! Judges, like the politicians who appoint them, watch the election returns. These elections are brought to us courtesy of the Republican and Democratic National Committees who dictate the candidates we’re allowed to choose between. This is no democracy. It’s a Ponzi scheme.
Yeah, but what can one person do about it? Well, you can vote for me. If elected I will establish (by executive order) a state bank to make 2% interest loans to develop and expand Oregon infrastructure projects and fund new sustainable manufactures. I will also (by executive order) ban political contributions (bribes) to office seekers and office holders. What can one person do?
Quite a bit actually, like this man: “The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” Benjamin Franklin
Or this man: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies…if the American people ever allow private banks to control the currency…the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson
Uh oh, we have both a private bank and a huge standing army.
Viva la revolución!
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Why Johnnie Won’t Read
One third of high school graduates never read a book after graduation. Forty-two percent of COLLEGE GRADUATES never read a book after graduation! This is the outcome from an education system that consumes $10,000 per year per student of taxpayer money. Kitzhaber, Bradbury and the other candidates continue to foster the illusion that MORE money spent on education would solve our problems.
You must read this, then tell me more money spent on a Prussian military school system like ours will ever improve anything: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm
If we want to improve education we need only copy the system that produces the highest per capita income in the world, Switzerland’s. And while we’re in a copying mode, let’s adopt Holland’s healthcare system, also the best in the world. And if we want to get our budget under control we can copy Costa Rica and outlaw armies; that alone would cut our workweek in half with no loss of wages! We keep trying to re-invent the wheel when the obvious answers are available on the shelf.
Personally, I’m convinced the only alternative when a government like ours loses all moral authority is to fire them all and start over. It’s either that or bankruptcy, chaos and anarchy. We’ve reached that point. Of course, since most will never read this blog I may as well be talking to a fencepost. Nevertheless, one must do what one can.
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How to End Unemployment Tomorrow
It’s so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it before. Shorten the workweek and raise the minimum wage. It works every time!
Everyone must have employment because everyone has living expenses. It’s either a job or hit the streets with the homeless. Inventions in laborsaving machinery and processes cause unemployment. The natural consequence of improving productivity is that someone loses his job. (more…)
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