My Vote; Arguing with college students; Podcasts

I missed last week for an assortment of reason which would just take up space were they to be printed here, so this week will have an extra long version of the ramblings.

I voted

I sent in my absentee ballot a few days ago, I voted for Bob Barr, for two main reasons:

1. I narrowed it down to him or Chuck Baldwin and I could not get over Baldwin’s protectionist position
2. Barr has polled at 6% and has a lot greater chance of showing America there are more than two choices.

A very strange statement

I got into an argument with another student here last week, he acknowledged that my economic thought made sense, but said there was no way someone could actually run for president and be as famous a Barack is while having such faulty positions, for that reason he still supports Barack.

Using this logic no famous person could possess any wrong conclusions.

Thomas Jefferson is also pretty famous, yet he would probably recommend Barack be deported to North Korea for a few years, because of Barack’s economic position, were he alive today.

Libertarian Podcasts

There are a number of great libertarian podcasts that can be downloaded daily, weekly, etc.

To find this just download iTunes, then go to the music store and search the following terms:

• EconTalk – George Mason Professor Russ Roberts has a weekly about an hour long interview
• Cato – I do not download this, but for those interested the Cato Institute has a daily podcast and also makes available a number of speeches from its events
• Foundation for Economic Education – FEE has all of its summer lectures available
• Lew Rockwell Show – Lew Rockwell interviews many of the people from the Ludwig von Mises institute, or those who write for his site, this is daily
• Ludwig von Mises Institute – This is my favorite podcast, the Institute has numerous speeches (from half twenty minutes to two hours, there are probably about 25 currently available) and the audio of many books, including For a New Liberty, The Law, The Case Against the Fed and Conceived in Liberty
  
• Reason TV – This is my favorite video podcast, it is produced by Drew Carey and sometimes hosted by him, the episodes come out pretty sporadically and are usually about ten minutes long.

If you’re not voting third party

Please vote for McCain. I know he’s an imperialist and barely less socialist than Obama, but the congress will most likely be won by the democrats and historically government has grown a lot less when the two branches battle each other.

A Christian socialist (or even democrat for that matter) is a hypocrite

Socialism is based on, “spreading the wealth around,” as Barack Obama put it. Since people are inherently unequal this involves the stealing from one person to give to another, therefore any Christian (or any other person morally against stealing) who is for socialism or even any form of taxation is a hypocrite.

There is no argument to this.

Salary Caps are insane

A trend in almost all sports today is to institute a salary cap. The salary cap limits the amount of money a team, can spend on all its players. Theoretically this would limit the ability of big towns with a lot of fans to just buy up all the players, which would kill any chance that small towns could win the championship.

However, this does not seem to work (the Yankees have long had the highest payroll in the league, but haven’t won the World Series since 2000, and failed to make the playoffs this year; the Rays are in the World Series with the second lowest payroll in the league), and even if it did would that be desirable?

This is just the exact same subsidization that successful Americans are forced to endure in our current Welfare State. Why not allow teams to compete in all levels, if a town cannot support a team it is most likely because they do not care about it (Green Bay supports an NFL team with just 100,000 residents), not because they are unable to, what better way is there to find the best cities to support teams?

Quote of the Week

“It is easy to be conspicuously "compassionate" if others are being forced to pay the cost”
– Murray N. Rothbard

Brace Yourself For Obamunism

TJ Madison 23 October, 2008

When it was clear that Obama would be the Democrat Party nominee, it was obvious that the Democrats and other Barack Obama supporters would play the race 'card' to some extent.

They haven't disappointed.

Besides the typical Jesse Jackson style of race-baiting we normally see from the leftists, the race 'card' has turned into the race 'deck', if you will.

Apparently, 'socialist' is now a code word for Black person.

Huh?

Well it's true, so says the Editorial page of the Kansas City Star. If you didn't know this, let Lewis Duiguid, columnist for the KC Star, set all you 'racists' straight.

Now I know anybody with half a brain, would read this editorial and think of it as ridiculous and harmless, However, could this be the beginning of a trend, that leftist plan to use against anyone critical of Barack Hussein and his policies?

You bet! If and when Obama wins, expect the next four years to be full of new 'taboo' words we won't be able to use when criticizing Obama. Well, you'll be able to use those words, but only at the risk of being called a 'racist'.

And who wants to be called a racist? Racist is a stigma that no politician can shake, once it's attached to him or her. Unless of course, you're Senator Robert Byrd, former member of the Ku Klux Klan, then it's all right.

Why? Because he's a Democrat, and they get a free pass from all racist charges- even if they were a legitimate racist!

If the word socialist is to be deemed racist and offensive by the new standards of political speak, it will be bad for business at the agentsofliberty.com. For those who have read our columns, know that Socialism is a word we tend to use often. One of the most important books ever written, The Road to Serfdom
, by F.A. Hayek, is written for, and to: THE SOCIALISTS OF ALL PARTIES.

Now, did he mean: the 'Blacks' of all parties. Of course not. It was written to all people, Black or otherwise, who wanted a collectivist society. Socialism has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with government ownership of business and a transfer of wealth. CASE CLOSED!

The American people, for the most part, don't want Socialism. So the only way rabid Obama supporters can get votes for a Socialist, is to scare the uninformed portion of the electorate, by getting them to think the other side is racist.

This may be old news to people who classify themselves as Republican or Conservative, but this will mushroom into something much bigger. When Barack Hussein becomes President, don't be surprised when most 'non-race' issue's, turn into 'race' issue's.

If you don't want $50 billion more going to the United Nations- You're a racist!

If you don't want to send troops to Darfur- You're a racist!

If you think Obama's ears are to big for his head- You're a racist!

Anything critical of Obama will try to be tied to race. All of it done to shut down the opposition.

Is there still anyway we could avoid this Obamunist disaster?

Yes, but having John McCain being the only one to stand between Americans and disaster, is not very comforting. If you believe the polls, 11% of people are still undecided, which means: if John McCain can convince those people that the economic 'crisis' is the fault of Democrats as well as Republicans, he could garner most of that undecided.

McCain must also point out that the House and the Senate could possibly contain super majorities for the Democrats. Which would be fillabuster proof. And that a vote for him would keep the Democrats in check for the next four years, since they are mostly to blame for this banking fiasco.

The truth about Barack 'paling' around with known terrorists is unfathomable to a lot of voters, it goes over their head. So stick with the line: I'm a maverick-Republican with experience, that will keep the Democrat majority in the House and Senate in check, and will work with them for a better America. Remember, you're dealing with people who haven't made up their mind yet, so how smart can they possibly be?

All of this could be a moot point, the Stock Market already knows who going to win. Why else would it keep dropping?

It's bracing itself for Obamunism.

TJ Madison is a libertarian Republican who works in the health care industry. His big dream is to become a Community Organizer.

October Office Politics (Part 1)

TJ MADISON 16 October, 2008


It's getting close enough to the election where I notice more and more co-workers tend to be more open to discussing politics.

Sure, politics is something discussed at the work place all year long, especially between people friendly with each other. However, every four years around this time, you begin to find out how some other people at work feel about current events and politicians.

And that can be discouraging.

Why? Well I don't know if you're like me, but when I find out someone is a leftist, I start to think of them differently. I would rather someone say to me they don't follow politics, then to say I'm voting for Obama. I can respect the person who doesn't care, it's the person who actually "understands" both sides of the issues, yet still votes for the leftist. And if you're going to vote for the leftist, fine. Just don't go around admitting it to anyone, or be proud of it by putting a bumper sticker on your car. It's like having a pro-abortion bumper sticker on your car. Yes, it's legally acceptable to be 'pro-choice', but should it be something to really 'brag' about?

By the way, why are you even driving a car anyway, shouldn't you be taking public transportation, when your master, Al Gore, told you how evil cars can be?

When you put that 'pro-choice' sticker on your car, you're just telling everyone: "Hey look at me, the most important issue is, being able to suck the brains out of an unborn baby's head." Who cares about taxes, trade, foreign policy and any other issue, I just want to make sure women have the 'right' to kill their 'inconvenience'.

Sorry, I'm digressing, but as a employee in a Catholic hospital with many Catholics, I find it utterly disgusting to see and hear all the 'pro-choice' comments to justify voting for left-wing politicians.


Besides not caring about the 40 million unborn killed, when you tell people you're an Obama supporter, you're telling them a lot more about yourself. Look at the infamous people who support Obama, and you tell me if you would still be 'proud' to have that Obama '08 bumper sticker on your earth polluting automobile?

1. Whoppi Goldberg. The big authority on foreign policy.

2. Madonna. Yes, the prostitute herself, is a proud Obama supporter. Why is she wasting all her time as a singer when this genius could be our Secretary of State.

3. Louis Farrakhan. The Jew hating race-baiter, who still can't get beyond slavery in America 200 years ago.

4. Rosie O'Donnell. The big mouth lesbian pig, who thinks Americans attacked themselves on September 11, 2001. Don't forget she's a physics expert, too.

5. Sean Penn. The biggest moron in Hollywood, who thinks living in Cuba under Castro, would be better than living in the United States.

6. Oprah. Yes, she can be admired in some ways, but she's just a big-headed phony. Supposedly, a big defender of women 'breaking the glass ceiling', however when it comes to Sarah Palin, a women running for the second highest political position in the land, she has absolutely no time to have her on her show. Why? Because Big Mama Oprah doesn't care about all women, just the Socialist women. Failing to realize, it was Capitalism, not Socialism that helped her make her billion dollar empire.

7. Hugo Chavez. Communist Dictator of Venezuela. Yes, Communist, enough said.

The list could go on with other classless clowns, like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, who glorify Communism and anti-American sentiment in virtually all their movies.

Also, reparations 'hero's' such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton. Not to mention felons, pedophiles, smut peddlers and other assorted freaks. Why would a good American want to be put in the same 'camp' as those people and their insane idea's?

Why don't you get a bumper sticker that says: Larry Flynt and I support Barack Obama.

However, being linked to garbage like that is only the tip of the iceberg. When you tell people you vote Democrat, You're telling the rest of us, the Federal government is not big enough. You're more concerned about silly 'rights' then with concern for liberty. Look, we all want rights- the right to be left alone. The left in this country wants the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing, the 'right' to education. That's not freedom, that's dependency.

Those aren't 'rights', those are rations of slavery, like entitlements. People on welfare get entitlements, and how free are they, sitting around waiting for a check from the rest of us?

The only 'right' one should have, is the right to do as you damn well please. Then accept the consequences.

TJ Madison is a libertarian Republican living in Fond du Lac, WI. He works in the health-care industry, but his dream is to become a Community Organizer.

Name Change; Chuck Baldwin;

As many have probably noticed I’m having trouble writing longer articles up to par with those I wrote before school started.

In an attempt to improve my columns I’m going to experiment with a ‘rambling,’ column over the next few weeks, these will be just like the ‘Things that should be Obvious,’ articles I wrote.
I will still write some longer specials maybe once a month or so.

Quote of the Week

“I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Book Update

A positive consequence of school is that is has given me the ability to read more, especially during breaks in my classes. Right now I’m reading The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (Studies in Ethics and Economics)
by Tom Woods.

After reading The Church and The Market (which is defense of the Free-Market from a Catholic point of view) I will read How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization,
also by Tom Woods, and write an article on those two books and What's So Great About Christianity,by Dinesh D'Souza which will include defenses of Christianity, how to reconcile it with the Free Market, History of Christianity (mostly about Catholicism) and my views.

Name Change

I’ve decided to change my pseudonym to Thomas Aquinas. The real Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Saint, who emphasized reason and was a precursor to Austro-Libertarians.
I must confess I do not know a lot about him other than this, but will read up as much as I can.
My old posts will stay under the pseudonym ‘Roark.’

Chuck Baldwin

Ron Paul endorsed him and so far our Agents of Liberty poll (which you can find on the home page) has him winning with 15 votes over Bob Barr’s 10*.

Who is he?

Baldwin is the Constitution Party candidate; he was their VP candidate in 2004 and is a Baptist Pastor in Pensacola, Florida. He also worked in Ron Paul’s campaign earlier this year.

Most of his views look good, but I do not like his Tariff policy (he says use a rate that is the difference between foreign companies cost of production and domestic companies. This would be impossible; one cannot define the cost of production, as it changes almost by the second. This would also hurt America; people in other countries specialize in certain things, this allows Americans to pay a lot less for them, and allows Americans to get better jobs) and many of the party’s views conflict with liberty.

The ‘Representatives’ should change their name…

…because they sure as hell are not representing America.

Despite the fact that numerous politicians said 95% of incoming e-mails they received were against the bailout (the House even had to shut down their server to stop it from crashing because of the immense incoming e-mails) the House followed the Senate to vote for the bailout, which was now filled with pork.

So not only do they not represent Americans, they also believe that it’s OK to steal at least $700 billion from the people to support a stupid few, and add pork projects that help a few more at the cost of the rest.

* This was at the time this article was written, since then Baldwin has gotten three more votes, but Bob Barr has received 11 more and the Site's most polled poll ever (40 total votes) show that our readers prefer Bob Barr.

McCain's Last Stand

BY, TJ Madison October 8, 2008

As I write this, the second debate between McCain and Obama is taking place. Poll numbers say that Obama has a four point lead and more importantly he's leading in states that Bush won in 2000 and 2004. In football terms, when McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his VP, he converted a '3rd down and 18 yards'. That may be wearing thin now, and he needs to throw a 'Hail-Mary' pass during this debate.

He desperately needs a 'game changer'.

Let's face it, for those of us that love liberty, the choices of John McCain and Barack Barry Hussein Obama are really not choices at all. In all the elections I've ever followed, I've never wanted one to be over this much. Now I'm not saying that any prior candidates in the last few elections have been anything to brag about, but I've never seen two candidates who deserve to be president less then these two.

However, for totally different reasons.

Barack Obama

Barry Hussein would be the most inexperienced Commander in Chief in the history of this country. Remember, he is only a few years removed from deciding the dog and cat licence fee's in Cook County, Illinois. In fact, look at what other Democratic leaders really think about his ability to lead.

Should we entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one... or to put America in the hands of someone (Obama) with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate?

Those were Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton's words, not mine.

How about this quote: I mean when was the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics then Obama!

That was a quote by the former Democrat President, and estranged husband of Hillary, Bill Clinton.

And how about Democrat Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland: It's fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas...

Another Democrat Governor, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania says about Obama, We're not electing a cheerleader... It's serious business, we're not electing a rock star.

That sure doesn't sound like a person convinced of Obama's qualifications to be President.

And of course the best one: I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.

At least that's one truth spoken by Democrat Senator and Obama's VP pick, Joe Biden. Now, don't you think it was odd for Barack to pick Biden as VP, even though Biden confirmed that quote while standing right next to him at the Democrat primary debate?

Then again, Obama is odd for a host of other reasons; like why did he change his first name, and not his middle name. I'm only asking because he's 'running away' from his middle name. You can't even mention his middle name, Hussein, without get labeled as racist. Why then didn't he change his middle name instead of his first name? From Hussein to something 'American' like... Chuck.

Barry Chuck Obama. Now there's a name Barack Hussein wouldn't have to run away from. He could win Texas with that name!

Another oddity is his associations with oddball characters, like William Ayers and Reverend Wright. Ayers, A 60's radical domestic terrorist, who helped launch Barry Hussein's political career. And Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who served as Obama's Pastor for 20 years. Do you think 95% of Americans can relate to these two anti-American sleaze balls?

Even Democrats should be outraged that, a man who planned to blow up the Capital Building, could end up sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom. What kind of twisted irony is that?

Seriously though, with what were facing, whether it's the Stock Market, Foreign Affairs or other important issue's, is this really the election to trust a "on-the-job training" candidate? He has never run a state, he has never run a city, he has never run a business, and judging from the looks of his wife, Michelle, he doesn't wear the pants in the family either. He and Biden are both lawyers and Senators, two of the most hated professions in the history of mankind.

Americans would have to be pretty unsatisfied with Republicans to take a chance on 'Obama bin Biden'.

McCain

The reasons for John McCain not deserving to be president are a little different. His time was eight years ago, when he fought and lost, to George W. Bush for the nomination of the Republican party.

As much as I dislike McCain's policies, looking back, he may have been a better person to be the Republican nominee then Bush, considering what happen to the United States on September 11, 2001. Not to mention, Bush's spending problems and lack of a single veto in his first term.

Let's face it, McCain is a Conservative Democrat. He's Joe Lieberman without the annoying cartoon voice. The 'Right' in this country deserves a Republican candidate who will actually shrink the Federal government. A government that thinks about an 'America First' foreign policy and dramatic cuts in taxes and spending. Alas, we already know he will not provide these simple requests, because he's not even promising them, unlike GW Bush.

McCain, like Biden, is a long term Senator. It's hard to believe that someone can be in Washington almost thirty years and expect the public to believe that he's an actual reformer or maverick. However, he insists on telling us he is, so I guess we shouldn't doubt him, he is of course, a politician.

He had his chance to show the American voters he wasn't your average Senator, by opposing the $700 billion bail out. However, he stuck with the Washington insiders when he could have been a 'real' maverick.


TJ Madison is a Black Sheep Republican, living in Fond du Lac Wisconsin.

The Bailout

I’ve decided to discontinue the links on the blog, and will, instead, send them in e-mails whenever I have time. If you’re interested in getting the links, send me an e-mail at agentsofliberty@gmail.com with your first name and I’ll add you to the list.

The Quote of the week will appear before my column every week and every other week the polls will appear with TJ’s column.

This week’s quote is:

"Most people who read The Communist Manifesto probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of 'the workers'." – Thomas Sowell

The Bailout

A few days ago, I sat through a 30 minute explanation by one of my prof's, explaining why the bailout was necessary (thankfully I was able to resist the temptation to just leave) and have decided to write about it here.

First, I know the House voted against it on Monday, but that is by no means the end of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush did it with an executive order, or some other similar event happened.

The Real Cause

Many ignorant people seem to think the ‘free market,’ and Bush’s Capitalism is the cause (as if this market is free and Bush is in anyway a Capitalist) of the current crisis, this is, however, not true.

The Government, as it most always is the cause.

After 9/11 the interest rates were lowered to 1%, this caused a lot of credit to be used at lower than the market rate, the response, shortly after, was a boom; businesses and people were able to grow using other people’s money.

This made Bush look very good, but, as it always does, the low rate gave people incentives to take out loans they could not pay and gave financial institutions incentives to loan money to people who may not have been able to repay it.
To compound the problem all these loans were packaged into bundles worth billions of dollars and sold and re-sold to the point where every financial institution (except Goldman Sachs which was short the same amount they were long, so their investments canceled out) had huge exposure to the loans.

After a boom caused by low credit there is always a bust, this is what is happening now; people who were enticed by low interest rates now cannot repay their loans and are defaulting, and the institutions who are owed the money are failing.

Note: this is the Austrian theory of the Business Cycle, which I literally had no grasp of two weeks ago and understand enough to be able to see what is happen after just a few hours of podcasts, this stuff isn’t that difficult to understand.

Now, government is definitely the cause of the current crisis, yet the Secretary of the Treasury, head of the Fed, President of the US and both Presidential Candidates have endorsed more government as the solution, it seems to me like they’ve punched a wall and bruised their hand and think the solution is more wall-punching.

Evolution

Most liberals seemed to be obsessed with the Theory of Evolution, which says in short, that as things with inferior traits die off, the population as a whole is improved, or survival of the fittest.

The same liberals seem to be unable to apply this simple theory to areas other than biology.

If there are inferior businesses, running at a loss, when they die off the country, as a whole, is better off. I don’t see any politicians in Africa following around herds (may not be correct term) of wildebeests bailing out the old and week about to be fed to lions.

Consequences

The people who got crappy mortgages, they couldn’t pay, defaulted on their debt which is putting the businesses who lent them money out of business, this is established. The politicians want to use the tax payer’s money (which is/was forced away from the taxpayers) to back the financial companies so they don’t go bankrupt, sounds good, right?

What about the future?

If we start down this slippery slope what happens in ten years, when worse loans are given and riskier investments are made with the thought that the government will just bail out the perpetrators? What happens when people live the life of someone
making $250,000 per year on $25,000 in income? Who will bail them out?

If people do not learn from their mistakes, what stops them from making the same or worse mistake?