A Good Christian Raisin’ and a Eighth Grade Education
Strippers for Ron Paul. Michelle does a great job of explaining why anyone who cares about freedom (not only theirs, but other people’s as well) should have their interest peaked by the Paul campaign.
All seriousness aside, it would have been interesting to hear her opinion on the idea of eliminating the Federal Reserve and changing back to the gold standard. Dolla bill yo!
Sharon Cobb offers some free advice that should be obvious to any thinking person, but obviously isn’t obvious to the GOP.
Y’all have got to get back to being Barry Goldwater Republicans and stay out of personal lives of consenting adults instead of trying to make what consenting adults do a political issue for you. It’s shortsighted.
Yep. You’d better believe that the GOP is missing out on a lot of folks in the late 20s and early 30s who would prefer to have the gov’ment out of our lives. Some are naive enough to opt for the liberal alternative to what is now being called conservative (although I don’t see the difference anymore) and giving up an equally important freedom by letting the gov’ment into their wallets. Big mistake.
Others, like me, are turned off by the whole situation and pushed into supporting third parties that have no chance of winning on principle.
Ron Paul has given me hope that the Republicans can actually turn this thing around and get back to basics. The longer he stays in the race, the more people will hear his message, and the further the Republicans will be pushed towards staying out of people’s lives. At the very least, they could finally have something to actually debate about when they face the Democrats. Hell, I may even finally vote for one.
Thanks to Michael Silence for pointing this one out.
** UPDATE **
A related comment in an unrelated post at TheLibertyPapers
They both believe in big government, they simply piss our money away on different issues. Both groups’ policies will eventually lead to economic disaster.
Well put by UCrawford
I came upon this story by way of Reason. I’m no fan of the ACLU, mostly because they are very selective about which civil liberties they choose to defend, but I have to be cheering for them in this case, where a truck driver was forced to turn over $23,700 for no other reason than he had an amount of cash greater than $10,000. No drugs, no drug paraphernalia, no probable cause.
DEA agents told Prieto he would receive a notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within 30 days and that to get it back, he’d have to prove it was his and did not come from illegal drug sales.
Wasn’t the whole issue of search and seizure addressed a while back? At least that’s what I remember from my learnin’ in public schools.
The lawsuit said Prieto does not like banks and customarily carries his savings as cash.
That’s great and all, but the fact is, he doesn’t have to explain it. According to the Houston Chronicle article, he was actually nice enough to tell the police that he had the money and give them permission to search his vehicle. He could just as easily refused to allow them to search without any probable cause. That’s what I would do.
“The government took Mr. Prieto’s money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night,” Simonson said. “In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator.”
The scary part is, I’ve transported over $10k in cash (obtained legally, btw) on at least two occasions. Good thing I didn’t have a break light out. I’ll definitely be watching my back if my dreams of winning a big poker tournament ever come to fruition. It would suck to have it confiscated before I was able to pay the outrageous taxes on my winnings.
Justin Gardner asks the question:
In a time where we need unity, do you think Paul’s “Dr. No†way of politics will actually bring the country together?
There are some great responses to this question, and most actually address the first part–do we need unity necessarily? I think it would be great to have more unity in a love of freedom and a healthy appreciation for our differences.
But I’d settle for abiding by the Constitution and allowing individual states to decide how to deal with issues like health care, education, etc.
Liberty Papers that is, on getting their 500,000th visitor on Sunday.
Those guys churn out a lot of great content, and as Doug posted,
We’re not here to promote any agenda other than the agenda of freedom, and open debate is always welcome.
One of the many post ideas I have trying to bounce its way out of my head right now is on the approach freedom-minded people have towards debate vs. that of nanny-state people.
Here’s a hint at the thesis–one of these groups tends to acknowledge and respect the fact that different people have different opinion. They are usually capable of friendly debate without letting their personal emotions get involved.
The other…
Whew! Good thing we have the Patriot Act to keep us safe from those radical Islamic…chickens?
Just after midnight on May 13, 2004, a small team of FBI agents crept into the legendary Del Rio Cockfighting Pit in Cocke County.
…
Acting under the authority of the Patriot Act, the agents had obtained a search warrant that allowed them to clandestinely enter the property, search for evidence and not tell anyone about it until the government or a judge was ready to let the owners know they’d been there.
This is unreal. It is bad enough that this is what our law enforcement stays busy with this, but the Patriot Act? C’mon. Guys involved in a cock fighting ring may have a lot of undesirable traits, but being unpatriotic probably isn’t one of them.
The full story is in the KNS. by way of Michael Silence
*** UPDATE ***
More on this important national security issue from Knoxviews and
Tam,
FladaBlog has an excellent post on public school socialism:
Let’s consider an island with one family with children and one childless couple. Does the family have a right to force the autonomous couple to contribute to the education of their children? Most rational people will agree that they do not have such a right. Additionally, the childless couple does not have the right to force the other family to let the couple dictate how the family’s children should be educated. Does adding another family with children change the underlying principle of rights? Again, most rational people will agree that it does not.
So the question is: at what number of families does it become moral to force the childless couples to pay for the education of the families’ children? At what number does society gain the right to force families to start allowing the society to educate their children? Is 100 the magic number? 1000? 1,000,000?
Anyone? Anyone?
Read it again, substituting “education” with “health care”.
Again, this time with “retirement”.
Again, this time with “cable television”.
Again, this time with “reduced rates for energy” (corporate welfare).
Again, this time with “watermelon”, or “hair brushes” or “tire guages” or “jock straps”.
Of course, we all have the right, and I believe responsibility, to choose to contribute at any time. The question is, at what point do others have the right to force us to contribute?
For the first time in a long time I’ve been able to get a decent night’s sleep knowing that someone is taking the necessary action to protect me from you people.
Doug Mataconis points us to the report by Americans for Tax Reform that declares today the day of economic liberty in the United States. That’s right–beginning today, and every day for the rest of this year, every dollar you make actually belongs to you! This is very exciting. It’s a Festivus miracle!!!
It now only takes a little over half a year’s worth of work to pay your share of the bountiful gifts of government. Here are just a few examples of the wonderful things you have earned from your toils this year alone:
Failing education for all the kids in your neighborhood, whether you have any or not
A nation building project, err “war” that you probably don’t support
Housing for homeless alcoholics (offer good for Seattle residents only)
A fat pension for your former sheriff (Knox County residents only)
Substandard healthcare for wounded servicemen
A bankrupt government pension retirement fund–a.k.a. socialist security
Countless government subsidies for private industries–a.k.a. corporate welfare
Good job! I think you deserve a raise!!!
Mataconis:
The idea that Americans should have to work more than half the year to pay for the state should be offensive to anyone. Instead we all just seem to blindly accept it.
I’ve always been very opposed to the government dictating when and where smoking is allowed to private businesses, but something happened this week that make me suspect that private industry may actually be behind smoking bans. So let’s consider this–who has the most to gain by banning smoking in the workplace? Continue reading “Who is Really Behind Smoking Bans?”
