Independence Day

There’s no better day to begin a new chapter in the life of a freedom fighter than July 4th.  So, here I am, writing my first blog entry on my new blogging home, wordpress.com.  (For those of you who didn’t follow it, my old blog was on Blogger.com, nee Blogspot.com, here.)  Today finds me amidst a number of things:

- gearing up for Oregon’s Republican Congressional District Conventions July 12th

- looking into a new business opportunity

- dealing with several issues at the 4plex I manage

- trying to start preparing for the “Great American Walk For Freedom” beginning August 11th

- excited about the announcement, a few days ago, of Diablo 3 (yes, I’m a gamer, in my “spare time”)

- still reading Dr. Paul’s book, “The Revolution: A Manifesto” (highly recommended)

- watching my way through Alex Jones’ new movie “The 9/11 Chronicles Part One: Truth Rising”

- about to go to my sister’s place for 4th of July celebration

…and just as I’m finally getting over the first illness I’ve had in years (a head cold, or sinus infection, or allergy attack, not sure which it was), I had a tooth go nuts on me and had to have it removed Wednesday afternoon, so now I’m recovering from that too.  Sheesh!!  I’m not taking the painkillers today, so hopefully I’ll be lucid enough to write well for y’all.  :-)

Anyway, since this is an introductory entry, let me rant a bit about what I see happening.  First and foremost is the absurdity of attacking Iran.  This must be prevented. How the neocons can have any shred of credibility today is beyond me, yet not only is their presence still tolerated, but their ideas are still being listened to, with the danger now of leading us into an even larger “blunder” than Iraq.  It is truly a staggering realization for me, and it grows every day, that the most obvious, simple, and common-sense logic is insufficient in politics, and that stupidity and the wholesale slaughter of (more) innocent people is actually preferred to admitting a mistake.  Human nature is on full display here, and the scary part is to stop and ponder the difference between you and me on the one hand and these Congresscritters on the other.  Why?  Because the bottom line is that I don’t think there is any difference.  I can believe there are a few true psychos in the government, but they can’t all be psychos.  Some of them must surely have begun in politics the same way we all do, by noticing that something was wrong and wanting to get involved to fix it.  Yet, somewhere between that day and this one, they got perverted, and now they do the bidding of whatever special interests pay their way into office and grease their palms while there.

I can tell you from secondhand experience, and even a tiny bit of firsthand experience, that politics affords many opportunities to “sell your soul”.  Would you have the backbone to resist it, if the chance came along?  You might think so, but what if the situation became… muddied?  What if the “right thing to do” involved, during a campaign, the loss of your chances of winning an election?  With all your volunteers, staff, supporters, family, and the many voters out there who wanted you to win… could you knowingly put yourself on a losing track?  It’s a tougher choice than you might think, sitting at home reading this.  As proof, I offer you… Congress.  Besides Dr. Ron Paul, how many have been strong enough to take that high road?  It’s easy — and cathartic — to throw invectives at Congress and the President, and they do deserve reproach, but after all that I’ve seen, I’ve come to believe that if we are to truly understand things the way they are, we can’t view Congress as “other”; they must be viewed as “like us”.  We must admit that the failings are not a matter of having chosen the wrong people (how many times have we sent in someone new?) so much as having a corruptive system which (sadly) operates effectively on human nature.  Not to say that it doesn’t matter who we send, just to point out that even a good person will be hard pressed to stay on the straight and narrow in the cesspool we’ve allowed to develop in and around Washington, DC.  The forces at work there are powerful, and not always the clear right vs. wrong stuff of stories (“lesser evil”, anyone?).

We’re now $9 trillion in debt, with another (roughly) $70 trillion in unfunded liabilities.  We can’t afford this.  David Walker quit his job to tell us about this problem.  Maybe we should listen.  Now, on top of that, we’re spending trillions more in Iraq (after “mission accomplished”) and now the same… ummmm, with great restraint I’ll call them… jerks… who got us into that mess are pushing us into Iran.  Despite the proximity, Iran is not like Iraq.  Iran is bigger than Iraq, has lots more people, is a very old country, and is largely democratic already, thanks very much.  They also have been very non-invasive.  There’s not the slightest reason to fear them coming here.  Yet, based on fears that they might — someday — help someone else come here and perpetrate terrorism, we’re supposed to want our military to attack them.  Oh, and this would be without a declaration of war per the Constitution, if anybody still cares about trivialities like the Constitution any more.  (If you’re wondering what the real reason might be for all this, web search “petrodollar” and watch the videos of Lindsey Williams on YouTube.  The propaganda on the left and the right is wrong.)

While all this madness swirls around us, gas prices keep rising, taking with them the prices of virtually everything else.  What causes this?  The unrest in the middle east?  Well, that doesn’t help, of course, but there’s a more obvious explanation: things are costing more “dollars” because there are more “dollars” with which to buy them.  Those two basic words in economics, supply and demand, are always worth keeping in view; in this case, the supply of “dollars” is increasing so fast that the “prices” of things, as measured in “dollars”, are rising noticeably.  The “demand” for dollars is an interesting consideration.  On the one hand, they’re very much in demand, since we’re all feeling the pinch of needing more and more of them to buy stuff.  On the other hand, as each one becomes less valuable, it becomes less important to obtain that one.  Hmmmm.  What’s the solution?

As is so often true, the free market holds the answers.  Simply allow people to exchange things for other things without interference from the state, and the market will determine the relative value of everything in short order.  This is true of money and anything which could be used as money.  The problem comes in when the state puts its finger on the scales and decrees that certain worthless pieces of paper (or anything else, for that matter) are to be accepted as tender in payment of debt.  When that happens, it creates a distortion in the market.  Suddenly those particular worthless pieces of paper have “value” — purely due to the fiat of the state.  They have a use which did not arise from the free actions of free people but from the violence-backed dictate of the state.  We regard them as having value, ultimately, solely because not doing so risks being harmed.

If you’re not happy with the government you’re getting, maybe you should look at some “outside the box” possibilities.  I’ll be discussing some of them here.  For now, read up on issues which matter to patriotic Americans at the library of Congressman Paul’s writings, here.  Consider donating to my friend Michael Delavar’s campaign for Congress.  And tell your senators and reps: NO IRAN WAR!

Tags: corruption, independence, liberty, money, patriotism, Republican, war