Disqus - Latest Comments for Robert

Re: Tax, privacy and the state

Robert — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:42:33 -0000

The story is a perfect illustration why no one in his right mind would want his information in public hands. While these Norwegians may not have any personal criminality to hide, they have EVERYTHING to hide from criminals and other predatory hostis humani generis, whether they carry no badges (like the blackmailers), or whether they do carry government badges.

Re: About Gay Marriage in California

Robert — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:17:53 -0000

While we're at it, we should also recall the judicial activist and remove him from the bench, and make judicial activism an impeachable offense for judges. Judges are to interpret the law and make sure it does not conflict with the Constitution, not to make up law on their own.

Re: American and British Diplomats Attacked in Zimbabwe

Robert — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:53:08 -0000

If the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe finds himself in the situation again where Zimbabwean government goons threaten them, he should have a cell phone with Vice President Dick Cheney on speed dial. And he should make a very public call to Dick Cheney, telling him so that everyone around him can hear, "Mr. Vice President, I think Zimbabwean government troops are about to perpetrate an act of war against the United States..." I suspect the goons would quickly back down.

Re: Mortgage Bailout Bill Shreds Property Rights, Fleeces Taxpayers

Robert — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:08:07 -0000

And the hell of it is that it won't make the slightest difference in a $20 trillion wipe-out of the housing market, the losses from which are also wiping out the entire global financial system. Time to get your cash from the bank, while it's still there. The first 10% will get their cash. Those who come after will find to their horror it isn't there.

Re: A Nobel Low: Krugman Calls Small Government Philosophies Racist

Robert — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:50:44 -0000

The non-sequiturs employed by Paul Krugman are a favorite tool of the dishonest. An example of the slippery slope logical fallacy. I have seen enough examples of Paul Krugman's articles trying to justify the evils of the state at the expense of liberty and everything good to know that he is usually up to something, and weight his credibility accordingly - his credibility is that of a known liar.

Re: A Nobel Low: Krugman Calls Small Government Philosophies Racist

Robert — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:01:20 -0000

And I would say to that, "Yes, I am smarter than that Nobel prize winner in this field of knowledge. Just because someone won a Nobel prize in one area does not make him a genius or expert in all areas. He is treading outside his areas of expertise and inside one of mine. Any information must stand on its own validity, not on who says it. And I know more than he does on this subject."

Re: Tom Campbell » Education

Robert — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:40:26 -0000

Have you seen this article as an idea for teacher pay?: Rock Star Pay for Rock Star Teachers

An excerpt:
In response to an online news story last year, a Nevada elementary school teacher left a telling comment: she had 34 students in her classroom and she was angry. Total revenue generated by this classroom, at $11,000 per child, was $374,000. Assuming the teacher has a total compensation package of $60,000, the question becomes, what did the school district do with the other $314,000?

But I think the best way to improve the schools is to remove ALL government involvement in schools. Return them to institutions pupils approach out of their own self-interest to learn about whatever they want to learn about. John Taylor Gatto's "An Underground History of American Education" dug deep into how our current forced schooling system came about, modeled after the militaristic Prussian schools with the support of several less-than-honorable special interests to create the current schooling system, which is a very bad fit for what is supposed to be a free country.
Before the forced-schooling model, it was in each individual's self-interest to know how to read, write, and do arithmetic. In fact, if someone wasn't already literate and numerate, the schools wouldn't waste their time teaching such simple, elementary tasks. Now, the schools' real customer is the one that pays them - the governments, paying the schools to churn out uniform citizens that are easy to manipulate and control (which practically describes slavery, but without the shackles and whips). It needs to be the student or his family that pays the school directly, so that the student and family are the real customers, whom the schools must satisfy and be accountable. The state of California could accomplish this by selling the schools to private ownership. And the sooner it does so, the more it will be able to get for them, and the sooner the state will be relieved entirely of the 40% or so of the state budget that I heard Tom say in the Town Hall call tonight goes toward schooling.

Re: Smoot and Hawley Return

Robert — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:51:06 -0000

One other thing to keep in mind with Smoot-Hawley/"Buy American" and the potential for a trade war - that would also increase the risk of a shooting war. There is great truth to the saying that, "When goods and services don't move across borders, armies do."
And as for Obama and the Socialist/Communist Democrats seeking to revive failed policies of the past in order to perpetuate and deepen the crisis, what they are trying to do is increase the party's power. Their only loyalty is to the party, none to the country. There is a great article on BrookesNews.com titled "Are the Democrats a Patriotic Party?" which explains that quite well. The George Soros hard-leftist Democrats are domestic enemies, one kind that enlistees in the military swear an oath to protect the Constitution against. And those malicious, treasonous hard-leftists need to be impeached and removed from office or arrested, put on trial for treason, and upon conviction, promptly executed to prevent a potentially leftist-leaning future president from pardoning them and allowing them to resume inflicting damage on the country ever again.

Re: Less than Nothing

Robert — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:15:53 -0000

I love the campaign slogan of "I promise to get things undone, and if I can't get things undone, I promise to do nothing at all." If you have any ambitions in running for office, 2010 and 2012 ought to be GREAT years to run against Democrat incumbents. And you won't necessarily have to run as a Republican to do so, either.

Another web site I remember with some great ideas is www.DownsizeDC.com. The "One Subject at a Time" Act, the "Read the Bills" Act, and "Write the Laws" Act even look worthy to be made part of the Constitution.

And when Obama's reign is at an end ("And not short enough it was!" to borrow a quote from Yoda), likely at the end of one term, the next president should subpoena his birth certificate and settle once and for all whether everything he has signed is signed by a legitimately qualified president (in which case we're stuck with the results until they are legislatively undone), or not (in which case they can all be declared null and void, which would be a nice and easy solution).

Re: Power Line - Paul Rahe: The road to soft despotism, part 2

Robert — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:19:31 -0000

There is a great paragraph from page 134 of "For a New Liberty" on rights. Here is a link to it.

In short, the so-called "rights" that Roosevelt named are really claims to take pieces of other people's lives, and claiming those exploited people essentially as slaves, denying them their essential right to self-ownership and ownership of their own labor. As the link I inserted (if it works) describes, a real right is embedded in both human nature and reality. It is something that can be preserved and maintained at any time and in any age. The right of self-ownership, and defending one's life and property are examples of real rights. It is independent of time and place. Roosevelt's so-called "right" to a job, on the other hand, involves coercion of one set of people to provide the so-called "right" to another set of people. That's what needs to be pointed out.

Re: Power Line - Paul Rahe: The road to soft despotism, part 2

Robert — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:01:26 -0000

Another thought came to mind from the part about senators being elected directly by the people. There was some article a month or two ago in The American Thinker about how so many votes are really case against a candidate than for a candidate, and one idea that came out of that column was "approval voting", whereby a voter could award a vote to every candidate he deemed acceptable as a representative. Something else I read mentioned numerous scandals and corruption with numerous state legislatures in appointing their senators in the early 20th century, giving a push to direct election. The idea I got ties these together by trying "approval voting" for senators. We would go back to state legislatures choosing candidates for senator. But now they would be nominating several choices. For senators, the people would confirm however many Senate seats were to be filled with "approval voting". Whoever got the most total votes, meaning he was an acceptable candidate to the greatest number of people, would fill the Senate seat. This method would return to the state legislatures picking the senators to represent the state legislatures, but now with the people confirming their nominations, much like the Senate confirms presidential nominations for the Supreme Court and other officers, and if state legislatures nominate a scandalous candidate, the people would not confirm him, but confirm someone else. The Senate ceases being a second House of Representatives. And maybe we discover a more desirable way of choosing representatives which if it works well, could be extended to how we choose other representatives.

Re: Privatized policing

Robert — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:48:18 -0000

We may just be seeing the start of private-sector provision of services traditionally thought of as government services as described in Chapter 11 of "For a New Liberty", the 1978 Libertarian manifesto. That chapter describes how private policing would likely ultimately look. This could be an exciting development.

Re: Where Have All the Heroes Gone? – by Michael A. Walsh

Robert — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:42:27 -0000

We might actually have some recent, at least pro-Western civilization movies. Think of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or the Harry Potter series. Both have been smash hits with interesting stories with the battle between good and evil. Lord of the Rings had some particularly relevant quotes, one of which was to the effect of "There is good in this world, that is worth preserving, and worth fighting for". And showing how evil must be confronted and destroyed. Ignoring evil only allows it to grow powerful until it is a serious threat to even your very survival, and it leaves nobody alone. I even saw an article on the latest Batman movie that pointed out how Batman is the one person in Gotham City who is free to do the right thing, because it IS the right thing to do. And another line in the movie describing the Joker mentioned how some characters "don't really stand for anything, can't be reasoned with, and can't be negotiated with. They just like to see things burn." That describes America's enemies and the enemies of Western civilization in general quite well, e.g., Islam. The movies are out there, if you know where to look for them. But even those may well have been made outside Hollywood.