Amish Farmer Harassed Over Raw Milk

“They came in the dark, shining bright flashlights while my family was asleep, keeping me from milking my cows, from my family, from breakfast with my family and from our morning devotions, and alarming my children enough so that the first question they asked my wife was, ‘Is Daddy going to jail?’”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/26/raw-milk-crackdown/#ixzz0mRNh7j1I

Tenth Amendment Center Says Arizona Law IS Constitutional

Immigration vs Naturalization

April 28, 2010

by Michael Boldin

Over the last couple days, I’ve received a number of emails about Arizona’s new immigration law – and thought it was worthy of some constitutional consideration.

To start – we must keep adherence to the 10th Amendment as a top priority. This means that the federal government is authorized to exercise only those powers that we the people of the several states delegated to it in the Constitution…and nothing more. These are often called the enumerated powers.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution empowers Congress to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” – or, more simply stated, to make universal rules about giving foreign-born residents of the United States the “privileges of native” born residents.

The most important thing to consider at this point are the words “immigration” and “naturalization” themselves. While most of us would consider them strongly related, we have to keep in mind that in any 18th Century law dictionary, they would have been seen as two wholly different words, with two separate meanings.

And, if like any legal document, the words of the Constitution mean the exact same thing today as they meant the moment it was signed (barring amendments, of course), it’s imperative that we understand the meanings of such words at the time of the founding.

For example, a common 18th century definition of naturalization was “The act of investing aliens with the privileges of native subjects”, while emigrate had a common meaning of “to move from one place to another.”

Such a delegated power over “naturalization” then, does not specifically address the power over immigration rules in any way. But, Constitutionally-speaking, one also has to then consider the common law doctrine of principles and incidents (i.e. the necessary and proper clause) to find authorization for anything not spelled out in the constitution.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument that control over who can and cannot cross a border was considered by the Founders to be an incidental (lesser and directly required) power related to the delegated power over naturalization.

But, I’m sure someone will try to make one eventually. And yes, I’m all ears! Otherwise, such power is something retained by the people of the several states to be dealt with by their state governments or not – as they see fit.

If this analysis is correct, then Arizona’s new immigration law would be acceptable under the federal constitution. It would then need to be scrutinized for compliance under the Arizona State Constitution (which I have heard almost no mention of in this debate).

At the same time, if my state of California (or any other state for that matter) were to then pass a law allowing more immigration than what Arizona or D.C. or anyone else has allowed, this would also be acceptable under the Constitution – and then would need to be scrutinized for compliance under the State Constitution of that state.

Such “marketplace competition” between states would certainly allow us to see which policy worked best, not only for the economy, but for the amount of freedom vs restriction that people want in their lives. That’s the system that was set up by the founders and ratifiers under the Constitution. It’s called federalism.

The key, of course, would be to remove any federal funding of social programs for people who weren’t “naturalized” under the rules of the federal government. (discussions on the constitutionality of those programs aside for the time being) States, however, could enact their own social programs should they choose – or none at all.

There is one other extremely important point in all this – just because something is “constitutional” does not mean it’s good policy.

Arizona Immigration SB 1070

I thought about applauding Arizona for “trying” to solve the problem of illegal immigration, but that would be like me applauding Obama for “trying” to solve health care.

Judge Napolitano says that SB 1070 is unconstitutional and will bankrupt Arizona and the Republican Party of Arizona.

Interestingly enough, Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled him “another hot contender in the far right-wing advocacy department.”

This video is from 2007, so skip ahead to about the 30 second mark to where Dr. Paul starts talking about the problem of illegal immigration. He cites the main problem being that immigrants can come here and get free medical care and free education…government subsidizing immigration, if you will.

Clarion Ledger Comment of the Day

This is in response to news that FEMA is coming to Mississippi today. Some things about Mississippians can't be compiled into national rankings.

[Y]ou people discussing the intimate affairs of my people affected by this tragedy make me sick... people in choctaw county ain't waiting on a dang thing. we grabbed our chainsaws and went to work... mema and insurance adjusters were around yesterday, and they will handle the situation best they can im sure, but we together as a group of people were helping each other. thats who is responsible for rebuilding. churches, families, and individuals helping each other are the things i saw... liberals will always claim that the responsibility lies in the hands of goverement to meet our needs, wipe our butts, and tell us how to live our lives. in choctaw county we take care of ourselves... so if fema or obama or whomever never shows up, then so be it, because we are mississipians, and we know how to survive, and thats by helping each other and ourselves... ive been shocked by the comments of some of you that try to make everything a race issue and play that card. go back to new orleans

What Do the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and Trash Collection in San Francisco Have in Common?

The Montgomery city government prevented blacks from organizing alternative transportation to the city's buses. Now in San Francisco, the city prevents organizing alternative to unionized trash pick-up. article

American nightmare: Collectivism, slavery, and Orwell

by Tim Roche

The dream of the collectivist is very apparently alive; it has spread like cancer across many parts of the planet, even as today the dream assays purchase here in the land of the free.

Collectivism in all its manifestations, with its splendid and empty promises, is the great lie told by those with absolutist mentality. Its subscribers seek a governance possessing near complete control over citizenry; because, according to the mindset, “the people” are incapable of making appropriate decisions regarding the fundamental questions of how to manage their lives.

The collectivist aligns himself with the poorest members of society. This tactic too is part and parcel of the great lie.

In the bribery of minority groups, with federal funds for welfare babies, for instance, and misdirection of federal tax receipts toward community reinvestment programs serving primarily to pay off local constituency and re-elect incumbent politicians, socially-minded politicos are complicit in perpetuating a kind of slavery. The extortionist headmen of recipient community groups are as complicit as their counterparts in government.

Slavery existed in this country since before its founding. Slavery has existed on the planet from the beginnings of recorded history, undoubtedly from the species’ nascence. It is practiced in various forms all over the planet today.

Those who like to believe American slavery ended with the Civil War are very much mistaken. As an acknowledged institution, yes. Yet slavery continues.

You do not have to look to the high-rise tenement buildings of the former Soviet Union to see the effect of collective ownership (oxymoron alert!); you can see it in Lathrop, Cabrini, and the erstwhile Robert Taylor. And while the politicians do not precisely say these “projects” are collectively owned, given the fact they are paid for by the citizens what else are they if not that?

Some folks will say the problems in communities such as these stem from a long history of outrageous mistreatment. To be sure there is a good deal of truth in this sentiment. But to suggest institutionalized slavery as the raison d’etre ignores a long (though comparatively shorter) history of institutional hand-outs, a system that has so thoroughly perpetuated a feeling of disenfranchisement that an apt new term was coined: The Welfare Trap.

If you cannot believe that giving poor people stuff for free and rewarding them for having more out-of-wedlock children could possibly be a bad thing, take a hard look at what has happened to the institution of family over the past fifty or sixty years.

Then again, who needs family when the State is there to provide all?

And what does this have to do with Orwell?

George Orwell was not a conservative. He was, in contemporary parlance, a liberal. So, when Orwell exhibited the temerity to write against centralized government, “the Party,” and communism generally, the radical Left in his native England had a field day. His book, 1984, was hard to publish given that Stalin at the time was an ally of Britain. One impediment to publication, a government official, later was found a Russian spy.

Some in the press called Orwell “Trotskyite,” a term today roughly equivalent to branding someone with whom you disagree “racist.”

Then as now those who condemn men for shedding light on the true nature of their ideologies deceive themselves (Orwell calls it doublethink); – good intentions are an end, never mind that the means corrupt and destroy. This is how they think:

Abasement of the individual to the collective is the first tenet of statism; rights must be rooted out. The individual becomes a dependent of the State, i.e. a slave. The Constitution, our primary document guaranteeing rights, is anathema.

You can recognize a person as collectivist because when speaking of the Constitution he or she will refer to it as “a living, breathing document.” This is doublespeak for saying that the Constitution is a very imperfect document that must be changed according to society’s (re the Government's) current interpretation and requirements.

On August 17th the brilliant Christopher Hitchens – an Orwell scholar among other things – joined Professor Russ Roberts on his fabulous EconTalk podcast. Hitchens, who also wrote the book Why Orwell Matters, explicates Orwell’s experiences as a child and young man and relates how Orwell himself had made the decision to preserve his soul by leaving his post in imperial Burma. There, Hitchens explains, Orwell fully came to understand the nature of power and how a human being can easily become corrupted by its influence, believing himself superior, effectively putting himself on par with God. --Orwell matters, and indeed so does Christopher Hitchens.

Today a state of human bondage might come in a form other than brute force. It might, as it were, come on little cat’s feet. It might, for instance, drab in wearing the guise of a penitent. That which is the Anti- knows better than to show up in the uniform of a Nazi. And so a free people must be constantly jealous of their freedom, guarding against marauders, vigilant in defending the bastion. Political freedom has proven exceedingly rare in this world. To lose it would be unforgivable.

Still they come smiling. They bear gifts and act in the name of something amorphous; but it is something, they assure us, that is beautiful and right. Everything will be taken care of, the collectivists chime, just don’t you worry.

Upon scrutiny: the mantle of righteousness is false, threadbare, and discolored. Their smile is that of the wolf. Their attitude that of mercenaries. The price they exact is All.

This is the nature of the hive mind. This is the nature of the statist.

Looking around at our elected representatives today, one has to wonder: Is everyone asleep?

Obama’s Stimulus Plan is Working?

Time to Cut Costs

Commentator:

Obama's stimulus plan is working. This administration is making all the right choices. I just wish he was more of a liberal.

Mississippi Guesser:

Wow, I've never said any president's administration is making all the right choices.

Even Krugman says the stimulus's effect will peak during the middle of this year. Then we're headed down in a hurry.

Commentator:

So what I see is that President Obama gets no credit from you folks. Did yáll vote for George Bush? Twice? I thought so. History will judge but I think that Obama will prove to be one of our greatest Presidents. Expanded health care will pay off in the future. Reining in corporate America is necessary. Cap and trade will save our childrens future. Guantanimo is a national embarassment. The rest of the world believes that we are a good influence for the first time in years. The cold war superpowers are reducing nuclear arms. And other nations are willing to let the US take nuclear materials out of the hands of the terrorists. And he's only been in office for a little more than a year.

Obama's legacy will be profound. His policies will keep America competative. The corporations (and that is what the original tea party was about... google East India Tea Company) have been favored for too long. If Obama has a shortcoming, it is because he is too much of a centrist. He should do more.

Mississippi Guesser:

The U.S. national debt (12.8 trillion) is currently 89.6% of U.S. GDP (14.3trillion dollars). The government is taking in 3.1 trillion dollars in tax revenue right now and spending more than twice the amount it is taking in revenue. We are heading toward an economic collapse, and you are praising a health care program that in 10 years will help bring our debt to 20.3 trillion.

It's time to look beyond the seemingly good intentions of President Obama and understand what is happening to our economy. Even Paul Krugman, a Keynesian economist, is criticizing the fed chair Ben Bernanke, who is also a Keynesian economist. Krugman says we're in trouble, and the stimulus will peak in the middle of the year.

We have to cut our spending across the board. We're spending 684 billion on social security, 666 billion on defense/wars, and 768 billion on medicare/medicaid. Those are the biggest budget items. We have to stop spending and pay off this debt.

Here’s the U.S. Debt Clock

Government Keeping Us Safe from…Ourselves.

Man charged after marijuana, moonshine seized

Starkville adopts helmet ordinance

Why are we so willing to give away our liberty?

Commentator:

When all citizens can walk into an emergency department for any reason at the expense of the hospital and taxpayers, these kinds of policies, which can mitigate the expense of stupidity-in this case riding a bicycle without a helmet-- should be made. If uninsured joe blow student rides his bicycle to class without a helmet and is hit by a car, expenses will likely be far greater than if he has a helmet on.

Thanks to Starkville city leadership for setting this policy in place. As Ben Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Your prevention of unsightly expense from helmet-less riders who are injured is worth far more than the cost of the cure for injuries from such an accident.
Your leadership is valued.

Mississippi Guesser:

If the driver of the car was at fault, wouldn't the driver be liable for the costs incurred by the injured bicyclist?

If Joe Blow is uninsured and not wearing his helmet and gets hit by a car, he is more likely to die and save others the costs of treating him.

What if someone walking gets hit by a car? Should we mandate that all pedestrians wear helmets?

This country was founded on individual responsibility and self-governance. Apparently these principles aren't important to you.

Tea Party is Full of Racists, eh?

I saw this video and just had to post it.

On March 27, 2010 writer Frank Rich was quoted in the New York Times Op-Ed section The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. Is this true? He then closed his article with Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Many media outlets, including MSNBC, the Washington Post, CNN, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Huffington Post among others are insinuating that there is racism in the Tea Party movement. Take a look for yourself.

Filmed on April 15, 2010 in Freedom Plaza and at the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. by Nathaniel Alexander Stuart.

In Rich's article he talks of people brandishing assault weapons at Obama health care rallies. Here's a picture of the old white...hmmm.

But guns are scary, right?

Revisiting Net Neutrality and State Intervention

Harvard’s Yochai Benkler on Net Neutrality and Innovation
April 19, 2010 by Stephan Kinsella

I’ve posted recently about Net Neutrality–see Net Neutrality Developments and A Libertarian Take on Net Neutrality. There’s an interesting discussion about this and related issues on the EconTalk podcast , between host Russ Roberts and Yochai Benkler of Harvard. Benkler really knows his stuff and it comes thru in this fascinating and informative discussion. As he explains, there is a debate about whether to impose “open access” as well as “net neutrality” regulations on the Internet-related companies. Open access means the state treats the physical communications infrastructure–fiber optic cables and so forth–that carry data signals for internet, cable TV, telephone communications, as a sort of regulated utility. Thus, it forces the owners of the physical “pipes” to sell capacity to competitors at regulated rates. This means the consumer can buy internet service from companies other than the owners of the physical networks. Net neutrality means that whoever whoever sells the service (whether it’s the fiber owner or some company that the fiber owner has to allow to use its networks to offer competing service) can’t discriminate between types of data packets, and can’t impose tiered pricing.

Now, as noted, Benkler knows his stuff, but he is clearly one of these mainstream interventionist types, talking about how “we” (the state) needs to intervene in the market to optimize outcomes, etc. etc. He is in favor of imposing open access, for example. As the podcast summary notes, “Benkler argues in favor of net neutrality and government support of broadband access.” The free market host, Russ Roberts (of Keynes-Hayek rap fame), is very diplomatic but pushes back one some of Benkler’s pro-regulatory assumptions (listen around 29:06-, 30:12-, 41:20-, where he makes the free-market case and argues against the pro-regulatory assumptions), but gets Benkler to admit explicitly that he favors the state intervening and forcing companies to use their property in certain ways (around 29:55-, ). Benkler’s paternalistic, state-trusting approach even carries through when it comes to the iPad and similar “closed” or proprietary products like the iPad (47:30-). As the summary notes, “He is skeptical of the virtues of new technology (such as the iPad) fearing that they will lead to less innovation.” He worries that consumers might like the iPad because it’s got a fantastic interface etc., but that this might be at the cost of the long-term value of “a more innovative platform” (open source) (49:50-). The typical omniscient planner mentality: there is market failure, and the state is needed to fix and tweak things, when the consumers get it wrong. Russ Roberts (48:10-) rightly interjects that all these products are great; he praises the first and second generation kindles; the progress of technology; the iPad; the diversity; the competition; Apple’s products; open-source; the Sony e-readers; the dynamism of the market.

Read more: Harvard’s Yochai Benkler on Net Neutrality and Innovation — Mises Economics Blog

The War on Cash Heats Up in Las Vegas

The War on Cash Heats Up in Las Vegas
April 18, 2010 by Douglas French

IRS Special Agent in Charge Paul Camacho has been meeting with nightclub owners in Las Vegas and has told them they must monitor the spending activities of their customers who pay cash. A customer spending $10,000 a year in cash with need to fill out a Cash Transaction Report (CTR).

That’s right, $10,000 per year. So, a customer who drops in 10 times a year and drops $1,000 each trip, a CTR needs to be filled out.

After all, “That investment fraudster, his victim could be your grandmother, your parents, your relatives, your neighbors,” Camacho said. “When they come to Las Vegas and spend thousands of dollars in cash, that’s money laundering. That’s why you need to do it. That’s doing the right thing.”

Camacho said, “Charge cards are fine. People who want to spend a lot of money in Vegas legitimately, hey, I live in the community, I like that.”

So, if you buy with cash you’re presumed to be a crook. Buy with plastic and you’re an upstanding citizen, doing the right thing. Bartenders and bouncers will have to double as bookkeepers.

This story comes on the heals of the IRS meeting with Strip Club owners in Vegas who tip cabbies for bringing patrons to their clubs. The IRS is demanding that the cabbies be issued 1099s.

Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Obama Does One Decent Thing

April 13, 2010
Obama Does One Decent Thing: Cuts Space Budget
by Ryan W. McMaken

Obama has done one decent thing and moved to cut funds to the space program. Neil Armstrong has condemned Obama for it. There are two thoughts that immediately come to me as a result: 1. “So what?” and 2. “Who cares what Neil Armstrong thinks?”

Arguments in favor of the space program are based on two things: sentimentalism and militarism. The militaristic argument is the more sophisticated one. The space program, behind its veneer of civilian purpose, has always been a military program founded to improve rocket technology, and eventually, to provide the United States with military superiority over space itself. The sentimentalism is the rationale that most Americans subscribe to as they get misty eyed over fantasies about “the human spirit” and “destiny” and all those other concepts from Hollywood adventure films.

From a pragmatic point of view, the space program is nothing more than a massive socialist spending program with militaristic intent, but which benefits handsomely from hysterical and maudlin appeals to hope in the government’s ability to accomplish anything provided enough time and taxpayers’ loot.

In this age of budding private space travel, thanks to organizations like Virgin Galactic, government space travel is more unjust and obsolete than ever. Yet, glorified crash test dummies like Neil Armstrong feel free to throw hissy fits if someone dares to slow the flow of taxpayer dollars to his pet projects. Having spent decades of his life as a military bureaucrat on the government dole, it is beyond comprehension to Armstrong that government spending on the space program is unnecessary and totally wasteful. And, even if one granted that space exploration were a good thing, one would still be a long way from demonstrating the need for manned space flight. Armstrong and others who have walked on the moon have done absolutely nothing that a robot could not have done. The Mars missions are a perfect example of just how superfluous humans are to space exploration in the early 21st century. Having a human wander around on the surface of Mars will tell us nothing more about the air, the soil, or the gravitational pull than we already know.

But, in the end, it’s all just special interst and partisan politics. Broadly speaking, the Dems’ primary power base comes from Unions and non-whites and environmentalists. The GOPs power base comes from white males and the military establishment. It’s only natural that Obama would cut some military spending, in the form of NASA dollars, to throw some money to some of his base. Armstrong can rest assured that the next GOP president will shovel plenty of pork toward the space program.

4th Amendment Ignored

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.

What Can We Learn About Inflation from Argentina?

On the Topic of Eminent Domain

Farm on the Freeway by Jethro Tull

Nine miles of two-strand topped with barbed wire
laid by the father for the son.
Good shelter down there on the valley floor,
down by where the sweet stream run.
Now they might give me compensation...
That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
Now all I have got is a cheque and a pickup truck.
I left my farm on the freeway.

They're busy building airports on the south side...
Silicon chip factory on the east.
And the big road's pushing through along the valley floor.
Hot machine pouring six lanes at the very least.
Now, they say they gave me compensation...
That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
Now all I have left is a broken-down pickup truck.
Looks like my farm is a freeway.

They forgot they told us what this old land was for.
Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones.
This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa.
But it was the place that I called home.
They say they gave me compensation...
That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck?
When I left my farm under the freeway.

What if the Health Care Controversy Resulted in...

the subject of this article written by Walter Williams in 2000.

19 states have joined in lawsuits against Obamacare:

Alabama
Arizona
Colorado
Florida
Indiana
Louisiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Nebraska
Nevada
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington

Who's next?

Tennessee
Montana

Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation Pushes Eminent Domain Reform

This article says Governor Barbour vetoed legislation in 2009 to strengthen private property rights. The group seeks to prevent the use of eminent domain in getting land from private citizens to give to businesses.

Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation is now circulating this petition.

Net Neutrality - Court Finds Against FCC

Court finds against FCC

Commentator:

There are places (ie, market failures such as monopolies) that do need some regulation (ie, anti-trust laws). The government should keep a small footprint, but laissez faire isn't always a principle best pursued to purity.

[T]he ruling [is] that Comcast can 'disfavor' - ie, reduce to dialup speeds even for a person PAYING for broadband - unfavored sites. Small-timers like vanns.com, monoprice.com, or even small blogs will have to pony up and pay to be connected on an equal footing with guys like Amazon and eBay. If you were half the economist/free-market idealogue you make yourself out to be, you'd appreciate what removing barriers to entry does to help promote competition, innovation, and the lowering of prices in a marketplace.

Mississippi Guesser:

Government allows Comcast to have a monopoly on cable service. This is not a market failure.

I really don't think this case is that important. In a few years we won't be using cable anymore. It's only a matter of time before we can just plug up our iphone to our tv and have internet tv. I'm pretty sure this is illegal right now, but I don't know why.

Commentator:

Municipalities and counties grant franchises (state-sanctioned monopolies). Theory is, if it weren't for the monopolistic rates, the carriers wouldn't provide service to the areas. Plus, it lines the pockets of the local municipality with franchise fees. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the practice, but that's different from the FCC regulating net neutrality.

As it stands, video-streaming is the service with the target on its back. It hogs bandwidth and it poaches profits from many of the fiber-optic carriers.

Commentator:

Like I said earlier, I'm more of a pragmatic libertarian. I'd rather avoid regulation where possible. Here... the internet is increasingly the backbone of our commercial markets, and is utilized by everyone from sports-bloggers to scientists at the CERN laboratory. We can't allow monopolistic - or, rather, oligopolistic - pricing mechanisms inhibit our growth and development as a nation and a people. Net neutrality is the only answer.

Mississippi Guesser:

If a company came along and offered access to internet free from the restriction of streaming media sites etc., and existing companies reduced access to these streaming sites, I think the existing telecommunication/cable companies would be out of business.

First Suits Against Health Care Law From Mississippi

PPACA class action Complaint filed 4-2-10 -

Article

Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.

Here's a problem in the enforcement language of the bill:

(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of
any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed
by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any
criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.

(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary
shall not—
(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property
of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the
penalty imposed by this section, or
(ii) levy on any such property with respect to
such failure.

Here's a proposed explanation for the lack of enforcement:

The enforcement provisions are a red-herring. I've been thinking about this issue since reading about the provisions that appear to give the government no recourse against those that don't but insurance and don't pay the fine. I believe that, like any delinquent creditor, you will have a negative mark placed on your credit history, and that mark will be updated each time you incur the fine for failing to have government approved health care.

Just try to buy a house, or secure a car note with a couple of thousand dollars worth of fines/obligations on your credit report. Try to get a job with just about any company that performs background checks. You wont be able to do any of those things.

So, while the government won't go after you directly (at least at first), you will be harmed in many, many different ways. The mind boggles at the mischief this new law will cause, and I haven't even started to think about how the take over the student loan business is tied into this madness, but I'm certain that one won't qualify for student loans with a bad credit report.

Here's a possible explanation of why enforcement is designed this way:

So as I read this, if no liens can be applied to a property and no levy can be applied to collect the penalties, there was an intention to make the penalty only really apply to those who actually care about their credit.

It seems to me that there was actually no intention to have the newly insured actually pay for anything. It was nothing but a wealth transfer tax, as many of use have been thinking all along.

Origin and Rise of Compulsory Medicine starting with Bismark

Response to Jerry Mitchell's "Investigative Journalism"

‘It’s all about who owns America’
On March 31, 2010, In Anger, By Jerry Mitchell

Much of the rage spilling over from the health care debate has little to do with public policy.

“It’s all about who owns America,” said Leonard Zeskind, president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights. “To quote them, they want their country back.”

The U.S. is witnessing is a rise in nationalism, he said.

“There’s real anger over deficit spending,” said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. ”There’s sharp anger for bankers who drove the economy into the ground. There’s anger for perceived socialist acts.”

He said there’s also been misleading and even false information sent out, such as talk of “death camps” being set up by the Obama administration.

“All of these things have completely terrified hundreds of thousands of Americans,” he said. “Now we’re reaping what’s been sown.”

Bricks have been thrown through the windows of some congressional offices. One had a note attached: ”Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

That quote comes from the 1964 acceptance speech by Barry Goldwater, Republican nominee for President.

Here is the rest of that Goldwater quote:

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

“The beauty of the very system we Republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize, the beauty of this Federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. We must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution.”

RESPONSE:

I really don’t think the protests are about “who owns America,” although when viewing the events through a social racial paradigm, this is a possible conclusion. I also don’t think that this is a “rise in nationalism.” People seem to be protesting the federal government and actually advocating for less government intrusion into their lives.

The blatant inconsistency in the movement is that, while advocating for less government and decreased spending, they still support war spending.

If we start looking at the cause of why people are upset, we will see that they are upset with the way the GOVERNMENT is acting. Democrats, before they got back in power, were very critical of how the government upset people in the Middle-East, which caused them to want to attack our country. This is a non-issue now.

Now people inside our own country are upset because of the way our government is acting. The more you try to centralize power, the more people will try to pull away. It’s a basic principle and the solution is to work towards decentralization, this will allow people to decide what is right for them on a more local level.

I think the anger stems from the fact that this group of people have been ignored by politicians. I always thought that small government was the base of the Republican Party. It has become more and more obvious that neither party is for small government.

The health care bill has served as a physical embodiment of what small government thinkers are against. I don’t think people are necessarily angry over just this issue, but this bill is a more obvious and concrete example of what these people are against. It is easier to rally against something concrete than something philisophical.

I absolutely agree that this could result in the rise of a populist politician, but at the same time, I think Obama was a populist politician.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

This is something that isn't taught in public schools.

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Governor Barbour Signs Nitrous Bill

article