Jerry on KPOJ Podcast

Listen to the KPOJ morning podcast from December 9, 2009: Carl and Christine interview Jerry Wilson.

KPOJ_podcast_Dec092009

My prejudices

Abortion. We have a secular state. Codifying this issue with laws violates the notion of the separation of church and state. It causes an argument that can never be resolved and distracts us from the real business at hand, namely earning a living. Prohibition against abortion has proven to be unenforceable, like any prohibition law. Forcing people who find abortion morally reprehensible to pay for them with taxes is equally odious. Conscience will judge what men can’t.

Gun Rights. Our most important constitutional right is the first one, free speech. It wouldn’t be worth a dime without the second one. You can own a bazooka so far as I’m concerned. Just make sure you aim it at the bad guys and keep it locked away from children.

Welfare. I’m for it. Those too young, too old or physically unable to work (always half the population) still need food, clothing, shelter, medicine and self-respect. For those few who don’t want to work it’s much cheaper to pay them to stay away than to employ them. Ask any employer. At least they won’t have to steal and mug to survive.

Immigration. I’m for that too. Without immigrants we’d have no good Chinese or Mexican restaurants and nobody to feel superior to.

The Federal Reserve. The U.S. Constitution designates congress to issue the currency, not a privately owned group of international bankers who charge usury interest fees to coin our own money. Mortgaging ourselves to them, mostly with 30 year T-Bills, means every bridge we build will cost three times more than if we simply issued the credit ourselves, just like a home mortgage triples the cost of your home. Two of three of those dollars go to financiers who don’t so much as pick up a shovel. We need to issue our own credit, hence our own bank to provide that service.

Political Parties. In Federalist Paper Number Ten James Madison correctly observed, “The public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival parties…” George Washington called them “baneful, very harmful for the nation.”

Just how much criminal behavior are you willing to endure from your government?

Mark Twain noted the only distinctly criminal class in America is – Congress! So just what crimes has congress engaged in? I could write a book on it but for brevity sake I’ll just name a few:

1. Congress breaches its fiduciary duty to account for spending by adopting non-standard accounting methods. They cook the books to hide the fraud.
2. Congress passed laws that in effect legalize the slave trade. It’s called a War on Drugs but the net effect is to warehouse people for Wall Street profit. It has nothing to do with crime, everything to do with investor’s profits and the public employments it provides.
3. Congress authorizes extortion. We have our hit men pushing democracy down other country’s throats at 737 military bases in other people’s land. And that’s just the official count. It doesn’t count the 107 bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and many others “off the record.” Small wonder we get “non-standard” accounting from them. Our generals still haven’t accounted for that missing $1.2 trillion. Apparently they think it’s none of our business.
4. Congress authorized the building of 30,000 nuclear weapons. We never needed any to conduct a nuclear war against countries we were told threatened us as all had built commercial nuclear reactors so had already targeted themselves for nuclear annialation by conventional means. Building such weapons makes every taxpayer a co-conspirator to commit mass murder.

Well, I could go on and on about this but I think you get the point. Why do we tolerate it?  Both major parties have failed to protect the public interest, have sold out completely to private interests.  Don’t vote for anyone backed by them regardless of what they say, Obama being a classic example of saying one thing and doing the opposite.

Labels That Stick

I’ll just come out with it. I’m a Socialist. I’m also a conservative Republican, a liberal Democrat, a Green, a Libertarian and now, a Progressive. I don’t think I’m that much different than you.

I’m a Socialist because I believe “we” comes before “I.” If we can pool our resources to function more economically, we should do it. We all have equity in and work for the same company, America the Corporation and I’m a Company Man. What some call Socialism I call joint-ownership. Capitalism will never fail because Socialism will always be there to save it.

I’m a conservative Republican because I believe in opportunity, efficient government and the rights of property.

I’m a liberal Democrat because when property oppresses persons someone has to say, “Not in this matter it won’t!”

I’m a Green because I have a profound reverence for the universe and all living things.

I’m a Libertarian because I don’t like being told how to live by people who have not walked in my moccasins.

I’m a Progressive because I believe in progress.

So how does this label me, politically speaking? How does it label you?

It isn’t worth doing if . . .

It isn’t worth doing if it won’t change the world.

Every inventor knows the only way to get there is to fail enough times. Failure is a good thing. Working your muscles to failure is what makes them superior; likewise, working ideas to failure is the only way to find out what does work.

I’m running for governor of Oregon because I believe we have the spirit in this state to pioneer new and better ways of living. The experiments I propose on this blog are bold. I’ve spent the past 25 years thinking through these ideas. I am not running for governor on a whim. If any of these ideas prove unworkable, it’s easy enough to try something else. One thing is for sure; if we don’t try and try again we will make no progress.

Aren’t we all progressives here? Guess we’ll find out as this election moves forward.