"Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong." Friedrich Nietzche

"Any and all non-violent, non-coercive, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not physically harm other people or their property or directly and immediately endangers same, that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, and that is done in private, especially on private property, is the inalienable right of all adults. In a truly free and liberty-loving society, ruled by a secular government, no laws should be passed to prohibit such behavior. Any laws now existing that are contrary to the above definition of inalienable rights are violations of the rights of adults and should be made null and void." D. M. Mitchell (from The Myth of Inalienable Rights, at: http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Warming Oceans, Cooling Oceans, CO2 and the Death of Us All

The International ARGO Project has a “fleet” of 3,000 underwater robots that measure, among other things, the temperatures of the oceans. Their robots have shown that there has been ten years of ocean cooling.


Cold water, especially sea water is able to take up CO2 more easily than warm water. As more CO2 is taken up by the worlds oceans there is the possibility of the acidification of the oceans. What does that mean?

Scientists at the Plymouth University Marine Laboratory have been studying this process of CO2 uptake. Dr. Carol Turley said that “[o]ceans have been taking up 25% of the carbon dioxide that man has produced over the last 200 years, . . . When you add more carbon dioxide to sea water it becomes more acidic.” There is now speculation that this acidic sea water will kill most shellfish (by corroding their shells) within the next three or four decades. And, it seems this uptake of CO2 is also causing a great rise in jellyfish populations. (This is but one of several articles you can find on the “web” blaming global warming/climate change on human activities, specifically releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.)

Much has been made about the oceans warming up. This site suggests that global warming will cause ocean warming, which will result in the loss of fish and coral. So it looks like warm oceans are harmful and that cool oceans are harmful. And both are caused by humans. Neat!

Unfortunately, warm sea water release CO2, ergo, less to no acidification of the oceans. Yea! The shellfish will be save and the nasty ol’ jellyfish population will dwindle. However, cool water absorbs more CO2. And the ARGO Project has shown that the oceans are cooling, as does this site.

So, what I want to know is this: how are humans causing cooling oceans? That is a puzzlement. How can the global warming/climate change alarmists have it both ways? Obviously, they can’t.

Either there is global warming going on, or there is global cooling and neither is caused by humans. (There is a third option: neutrality in temperatures. But that’s not likely, at least not for very long.)

Other sites you might want to visit.

http://iceagenow.com/

http://www.climatedepot.com/

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html#anchor2108263 (Scroll down to “Fun Facts About CO2.)

http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1356.htm

Friday, December 16, 2011

How Much CO2 Is Too Much?

We have been told for years now, by people like Al Gore, that human-caused CO2 is going to kill us all. Well, maybe not kill us, but make life really bad on Earth. Every day I see and hear advertisements about going "green" and getting rid of carbon-based fuels, and imposing a carbon tax on industrialized nations to cut their carbon output, ostensibly, to "save the Earth." (Actually, carbon is a solid, like coal or diamonds. CO2 is a gas, and a very important one.)

Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer testified before Congress in February of 2009 regarding CO2 levels. Below are just a few of the things he said.

  • "The increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind"
  • “Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now."

  • "Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the [present era]."

  • "Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that.”

He went on to say (in the full report) that during the times of much higher CO2 level plants and animals and the oceans did quite well. He also stated that under 300 parts per million of CO2 is like a starvation diet for plants. As I noted above, CO2 is a very important gas. Plants need it to survive. The more of it the better. They take in CO2 and give off oxygen, which humans and other animals need to survive.

The above was taken from a PDF document that was presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa on December 7, 2011 by Climate Depot in their report entitled, in part: Special Report: A-Z Climate Reality Check, page 16. The full report by Dr. Happer can be viewed here.

The Special Report: A-Z Climate Reality Check is full of other good information debunking the human-caused global warming/climate change fraud.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Marijuana: Why Government is the Problem

Over the years various government and private studies have concluded that the laws prohibiting the cultivation, sales, and use of marijuana causes more harm than good. Some nations, as well as several states of the United States, have either passed medical marijuana laws or decriminalized the possession of small amounts of that substance. But what has been the response of the federal government (fedgov) of the United States? It has continued to prosecute the federal anti-marijuana laws.

Presently, in California, the fedgov is going after medical marijuana dispensaries which are perfectly legal under state law.

President Jimmy Carter, in a message to Congress, dated August 2, 1977, said the following: "Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use." Congress ignored President Carter.

Other nations have come to the logical conclusion that marijuana should be made legal to consenting adults or, at the very least, de-criminalized.

“We believe … that the continued prohibition of cannabis jeopardizes the health and well-being of Canadians much more than does the substance itself or the regulated marketing of the substance. In addition, we believe that the continued criminalization of cannabis undermines the fundamental values set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and confirmed in the history of a country based on diversity and tolerance.” Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. 2002. Cannabis: Summary Report: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy. Ottawa.

"We accept that cannabis can be harmful and that its use should be discouraged. However, ... we do not believe there is anything to be gained by exaggerating its harmfulness. On the contrary, exaggeration undermines the credibility of the messages that we wish to send regarding more harmful drugs. We support, therefore, ... reclassify[ing] cannabis from Class B to Class C ... [so that] possession of cannabis would cease to be an 'arrestable offense.'"  British House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. 2002. Home Affairs Third Report. British Home Office: London.

"The Commission, after reviewing the most up-to-date body of medical and scientific research, is of the view that whatever health hazards the substance poses to the individual, ... these do not warrant the criminalization of thousands of Jamaicans for using it in ways and with beliefs that are deeply rooted in the culture of the people. ... Accordingly, the National Commission is recommending that the relevant laws be amended so that ganja be decriminalized for the private, personal use of small quantities by adults." Jamaican National Commission on Ganja. 2001. A Report of the National Commission on Ganja. Office of the Prime Minister: Kingston.

"Following detailed consideration of the different options, the Federal Commission unanimously recommends the elaboration of a model which not only removes the prohibition of consumption and possession, but also makes it possible for cannabis to be purchased lawfully. The model should not be one of free availability, but instead should include clear provisions for the protection of the young and the prevention of all potential adverse consequences of legalization." Swiss Federal Commission for Drug Issues. 1999. Cannabis Report of the Swiss Federal Commission for Drug Issues. Swiss Federal Office of Public Health: Bern.

And it goes on. Other nations, several states, and many independent studies have all concluded that marijuana should be decriminalized. But, again, the fedgov forges ahead in its war on marijuana.

U.S. Attorney, Laura E. Duffy (Southern District of California) is going after people who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana. Now, newspapers and other media outlets could be next. Ms. Duffy is one of the four U.S. Attorneys in California committed to this program.

Here is one of the hypocritical things that she had to say: "I'm not just seeing print advertising, I'm actually hearing radio and seeing TV advertising. It's gone mainstream. Not only is it inappropriate – one has to wonder what kind of message we're sending to our children – it's against the law."

Why is that hypocritical? Because there are ads for alcohol and tobacco that children see every day. Which I will get to in a bit. The main point I wish to make here is Ms. Duffy’s statement that “it’s against the law.” So what? The law does not equal justice.

For example, once it was the law that women could not own property in their own names. Their husbands or a male relative had to own it. It was once the law that women could not vote. It was once legal in the United States to own people—slaves. Congress passed laws to that regard and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld those laws. It was LEGAL, but it was not justice.

The present anti-inalienable rights, drug war laws are also unjust. The principle of inalienable rights dictates that adults own, and own completely, the very basic property of their bodies and minds. They get to use said property as they wish, just so long as they do not violate the rights of others in so doing. Almost all drug users, except in the case of alcohol, do not violate the rights of others with their drug use. Does the government have the legitimate right to stop them to protect them from themselves? No. Not unless you believe the government owns your body and mind.

The drug war laws enforce specific moral beliefs. That’s the same as “establishment” of a religion, which the First Amendment prohibits. There is no legitimate Constitutional power for the fedgov to force one person’s moral/religious beliefs upon a non-believing other. That is the tyranny of legislating morality. And tyranny is not too strong of a word.

Our laws should be secular, only. If a person’s behavior is non-violent, non-coercive, non-larcenous, done alone or among consenting adults; does not disturb the peace; does not create a public nuisance, and is done privately, that is, not done openly in public, especially if done on private property, then that is the inalienable right of all adults.

Compared to alcohol, the presently illegal drugs rarely cause violent crime merely from their use. (Click link and scroll down to paragraph 25.) Marijuana has never been linked to any deaths from its use, unlike alcohol. (Click link and scroll down to paragraph 6 and 17.) Although, there may have been some deaths related to marijuana, the number would be incredibly low. Another source places the actual deaths from the mere use of the presently illegal drugs at approximately one-tenth of one percent of the number for all deaths. And for this, we are fighting a never-ending, multi-billion-dollar per year, anti-rights drug war that has made felons of millions of our fellow citizens.

It is well-known that almost all of the violence surrounding the presently illegal drugs is caused by the prohibition of them.

So, the fedgov is being extremely hypocritical in waging its so-called war on drugs, which is actually a war on the rights of otherwise peaceful, honest citizens, almost all of whom moderate their drug use, just like most alcohol users moderate their consumption.

But why, all things considered, is the fedgov attacking the medical marijuana dispensaries in California now? I have my theories and they revolve around what is called the “Prison-Industrial Complex.” There are hundreds of thousands of people involved in arresting, prosecuting, imprisoning, and guarding people for drug related behavior, most of which does not violate the rights of others (a true definition of a crime). Then there are the prison builders, prison suppliers, private prison owners, and so forth. The war on drugs and the prison-industrial complex has made the United States the number one jailer in the world.

The prison-industrial complex has a lot to lose—billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of jobs. These people feel that this medical marijuana thing might just wake people up to the fact that marijuana is much less harmful, overall, than alcohol and tobacco, and that could lead to a drive to completely legalize marijuana, and that would lead to a huge hit to the prison-industrial complex. Ergo, lobby the fedgov—quietly, of course—to start using the fedgov laws to shut down what the people in California, and other states, have voted to make legal. Can we spell tyranny any other way?

Yes, in the United States we are free. We are free to do whatever the government allows us to do. It’s the law . . . but it is not justice.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Rick Perry's Drug War Political Nonsense Comment

Presidential hopeful, Texas Governor Rick Perry, recently said sending U.S. troops to Mexico to fight the drug cartels would be an option if he were to be elected President. That's just political rhetoric.

Besides the fact that Mexico wouldn't allow it--their constitution forbids it--what would be the result of shutting down the Mexican drug cartels?

Well, first, we could do the logical thing and just legalize all the presently illegal drugs just like alcohol and tobacco are legal now. That would shut the violent drug cartels down without firing a shot. It would raise a whole bunch of tax revenue, too. I have studied the issue for many years now and it is my strongly held belief that to re-legalize* the presently illegal drugs may cause a small, temporary rise in drug use. After that, however, drug use would go down. There would be no rebellious or counter-culture cache to it. Being a druggie would just be like being a wino or alcoholic now. Besides, the major illegal drug of choice is marijuana, and government study after government study, starting with the British in 1899, have all said that marijuana is, all things considered, less harmful than alcohol.

But, our politicians are either not logical or they are cowards (politcal suicide to propose the logical thing), so if we sent in enough troops and smart bombs and forced Mexico to let us do it, we might, just might kill all those drug cartel people. But that would just push the problem to somewhere else and drugs would still get into the U.S. in large quantities.

I like the first scenario, of course, because I'm a Libertarian and I want so very much for our government to re-establish the principle of inalienable rights. That would include the right of adults to own, and own completely, their bodies and minds and do with them as they pleased, just so long as they did not violate the rights of others when they did. It is a verifiable fact that the mere use of the presently illegal drugs causes little to no violence or criminal behavior in general. It is the prohibition of them that is the cause of nearly all drug-related violence and crime.

But now, to my real point. If we legalized drugs or were able to put the drug cartels out of business by force and, somehow, stopped the drug flow from Mexico to the U.S., then we stand a very good chance of causing Mexico to collapse financially and fall into anarchy and revolution. Billions of dollars flow south to Mexico. It has been estimated that Mexico gets 35 billion dollars from the illegal drug trade. That is approximately 18% of Mexico's G.D.P. Eighteen percent is nearly one-fifth. What would happen in the U.S. if we took nearly one-fifth of the money out of the economy, one out of every five dollars? Well, it would be a whole lot worse in Mexico.

U.S. economists and political analysts know the potential of an economic meltdown in Mexico should they stop getting the drug money. Rick Perry has people around him that know it too. Therefore, his get tough talk is just that, talk.

___________

* Note: I use the term "re-legalize" because about 100 years ago the presently illegal drugs were legally sold and used in the U.S. and there was no criminal justice problem associated with their use. But Christian temperance groups found their use to be immoral, therefore they lobbied Congress to make them illegal--the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. Basically, they got their version of religion passed into supposedly secular U.S. law. That would seem to be a violation of the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Horny Humans

In my last post, I stated that humans are the most sexual mammals on Earth. I amend that by stating here, that we are possibly the most sexual animals, period. Here is my reasoning.

Most people have a hard time dealing directly with sexual issues in a logical manner, especially when it comes to their own sexuality.  Here is a question of logic for you to answer.  Would the Creator God (assuming such a thing exists) have made humans to be so sexual for no reason whatsoever? 

How sexual are humans?  Both men and women have a great capacity for sexual enjoyment, in many different ways, from many different people…or objects…and, yes, even from animals.  Women do not have a sexual “season”.  If approached in the right way by the right person, a woman will have sex at any time of the day or night, any time of the week, month, or year.  A woman may even initiate such action.  Women have a great capacity to enjoy a lot of sex in many ways and they have this wonderful ability to have multiple orgasms.  (However, having the ability and having the desire, are two different things.) 

Men, of course, are ready to have sex whenever and where ever they can find it.  And, unlike most mammals, most men in their prime can have sex every day, sometimes more than once a day, for weeks or months or years on end. For instance, a stallion used for breeding purposes may "cover" (the quaint term for having sex with) one or two mares a day for a few weeks. Then they will be exhausted and have to be put out to pasture to rest until the next breeding season. 

Also, human males, pound for pound, tend to have the largest penises of almost all, if not in fact all, mammals. A 190 pound human male can easily have a six inch penis length when fully erect. A 1200 pound stallion can have an erect (and usable--that is, outside the penis sheath) penis of thirty inches. (Of course many stallions have shorter erect penises, while some have longer ones. But the figures given are a good average.)

If we divide the length in inches by the weight, we will get a ratio of inches per pounds. For the human that would be 6/190= 0.03. For the stallion it would be 30/1200= 0.025. Clearly the human has a longer penis for his body weight than a stallion does.

Then there is the blue whale, the biggest mammal in the world. Some are as big as 180 tons, but I will use 150 tons which is, again, a good average. The male blue whale has an average erect penis length of six feet. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But six feet, or 72 inches, divided by 150 tons, or 300,000 pounds, equals a length to pounds ratio of 0.00024. That would be like a human male having a penis length of between 4/10 and 5/10 of an inch long when erect. That's more like a gorilla, which, on average, has an erect penis length of one and a half inches.

And, by the way, gorillas have no trouble breeding. So, having a longer penis does not equate in humans, who are primates like gorillas, to assuring more pregnancies.

Then there is the fact that humans are obsessed with things sexual. It has been extimated that fully two-thirds of all the internet traffic is related to sex. Churchmen and politicians are getting caught up in sexual scandals on a regular basis. And how many divorces are caused by men who can't keep there willy in their pants? For that matter, more than a few divorces are caused by women who can't keep their knickers on.

And we were either made that way, by God, with these mental and physical sexual attributes, or we evolved that way. Whatever you wish to believe, it doesn't change the facts of our innate human sexuality.

Still, as I said in the first sentence of the second paragraph to this article, most people have a hard time dealing directly with sexual issues in a logical manner, especially when it comes to their own sexuality. That's because of religion. Basic Christian dogma would have us believe that sex between one man and one woman, who are married, in which they participate only in face-to-face, penile-vaginal sex, and only for procreation and not pleasure, is proper and correct sex…if you have to do it at all. All things considered, that's just plain silly.

And the laws--blue laws--that have been passed to punish transgressors have been to no avail. Besides, those laws actually promote a specific religious belief and that is a violation of the "establishment" clause of the First Amendment.

So, like I said, humans are the most sexual mammals on Earth. What should we do about it . . . besides enjoying it as much as we can? Well, I have three, and only three, logical, objective rules about sex. All sex can be good if you follow these three rules: 1) no unwanted pregnancies, 2) no sexually transmissible diseases, and 3) consensual adult sex only. And I add one caveat to those rules--The Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated. That means no unnecessay roughness. That is about domination and control, not about the fantastic beauty and enjoyability of good sex.

These rules are easy to follow. But humans are irrational, illogical, emotional beings, not given to following logic when they can smell sex in the air. Sex is, as May West once said, "emotion in motion." Remember, sex should be enjoyable, and if you're doing it right it will be. And sex should not cause you to worry about pregnancy or disease, and if you think things through and are careful, you won't have to worry about that either.

So be careful, let logic guide you, then let emotion allow you to enjoy all the sex you can have, all the sex you want, whether it is self-sex or sex with other consenting adults. Don't be ashamed or embarrassed of what comes naturally to us as humans. Our sexuality is encoded in our very being.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Sex and Sex Toys: How religious laws violate our rights

Anyone who has visited my site and done a bit of reading should know that I have a definition for what is an inalienable right: Any and all non-violent, non-coerced, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not physically harm other people or their property and is not a direct and immediate threat to other people and their property; that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, is the right of all adults.

This definition applies, logically, to all sexual behavior. There is no legitimate power of a supposedly rights-protecting and secular government to prohibit and criminalize consensual adult sexual behavior, including the sales, gift, or use of sex toys.

My definition of a sex toy is any object or device designed and produced specifically to provide stimulation of the genitalia and sexual pleasure. (There are, of course, many objects in most homes that could be used as sex toys, but were not specifically designed for that purpose.)

Laws against sexual preferences, sexual practices, sex toys, and the like are actually religious laws and have no place in a secular government. However, the various legislatures of the various states who have sexual prohibition laws (for instance: Alabama, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia) hide behind the ruse of protecting public morals.

But wait! What if my moral precepts are not your moral precepts? And what if I am not violating the rights of any other person with my sexual behavior? Do you, through the government, have the legitimate right to prohibit my moral beliefs, at least to the extent of criminalizing my action--actions that I will be doing in private, either alone or with consenting adults, and which harms no one? (And don't give me any crap about "social harm." Alcohol causes a whole lot more "social harm" than me and my honey participating in something other than penile-vaginal sex or stimulating her doo-dah with a vibrator or dildo.)

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the government from passing laws that establish a religion. If my religion, my belief in what is proper moral behavior, allows me, for instance, to sell or use sex toys, and your religious beliefs are codified in the criminal law to stop me from selling or using sex toys, then that law has, in fact, established one religion over another.

The Ninth Amendment basically states that the ten amendments is not a list of all the rights of the people. But no where did anyone define what an inalienable right is (except for me, above), not even the Supreme Court. The reason, I believe, is because if they had then a whole lot of laws that violate the rights of otherwise peaceful, honest citizens would have to be repealed.

The Tenth Amendment states that the powers not given specifically to the federal government are reserved to the states and the people. (Note, it didn't just say to the states. The people figure in here, too.) Remember, governments have powers, not rights. People have rights and powers. We have given some of our powers to the government, both federal and state, but I have never given to the government my power to determine my own personal moral code.

I own, or should own, the property of my body and my mind and I should be allowed to decide how I want to use that property, just so long as I do not violate or threaten to violate the rights of others.

The Fourteenth Amendment made the federal Bill or Rights applicable to the states. That is, the states are not supposed to pass rights-violating laws. The government, both state and federal, are supposed to protect our rights. All the laws against consenting adult sexual behavior are rights-violating laws. They are religious laws pure and simple.

Our nation was not founded as a pure democracy--for instance, two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner. There were some things, things we call inalienable rights, that were supposed to be beyond any vote by legislators or even the general public. Pure democracy leads to tyranny and the suppression of our rights.

The anti-sex laws regarding consenting adults are a form of religious tyranny and violate the rights of the those who do not go to that particular church or agreed with that particular religious dogma.

Besides, humans, whether through evolution or design, are the most sexual mammals on Earth. But that is an issue for another article.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Why Bill O'Reilly is a Pinhead

Bill O’Reilly is a prohibitionist and anti-rightist. His stance on the presently illegal drugs also makes him a pinhead.

The old proverb, “there are none so blind as those who will not see,” obviously applies here.

Mr. O’Reilly is a prohibitionist because he supports the present prohibition of the presently illegal drugs. Why do I call them “presently illegal?” Because, at one time in America cocaine, morphine, heroin, and marijuana were legal.

Mr. O’Reilly is an anti-rightist because his opposition to non-violent, consensual adult drug use does not accept the principle of inalienable rights, one of the founding principles of this once great nation.

He is a pinhead because he is willfully blind (a legal term) to the facts about drugs, drug use, and the harm and destruction that the prohibition causes. Which, all things considered, is much greater than if those substances were to be made legal once again for adults. Here is what Milton Friedman had to say about it.

"I believe a major source of our current lawlessness, in particular the destruction of the inner cities, is the attempt to prohibit so-called drugs. I say so-called because the most harmful drugs in the United States are legal: cigarettes and alcohol. . . . [W]hether or not you believe that it is an appropriate function of government to prevent people from voluntarily ingesting items that you regard as harmful to them. . . the attempt to do so has been a failure. It has caused vastly more harm to innocent victims, including the public at large and especially the residents of the inner cities, than any good it has done for those who would choose to use the prohibited narcotics if they were legal." ("Why Government Is the Problem", Hoover Institute essay, Stanford University, 1993)


Pauline Sabine, a wealthy and politically well-connected women during the prohibition of alcohol, stated before Congress: "In pre-prohibition days, mothers had little fear in regard to the saloon as far as their children were concerned. A saloon-keeper's license was revoked if he were caught selling liquor to minors. Today in any speakeasy in the United States you can find boys and girls in their teens drinking liquor, and this situation has become so acute that the mothers of the country feel something must be done to protect their children."

Originally, she had been for prohibition. "I felt I should approve of it because it would help my two sons. The word-pictures of the agitators carried me away. I thought a world without liquor would be a beautiful world."

Yes, Bill O’Reilly, a world without liquor would be a beautiful place. And a world without other mind-altering and addtictive drugs would be too. Unfortunately, such a world does not exist. It has never existed. It will never exist. The war on drugs does just what Ms. Sabine complained of regarding alcohol. To paraphrase her: Today, on any street corner or in any high school, you can find boys and girls in their teens selling and using drugs.

If those drugs were sold in drug stores to adults upon proof of age, while keeping strong punishments in place for those who provided or sold those drugs to minors, then the use of those drugs by minors would go down and go down dramatically.

Joseph McNamara, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Standford University, was a former policeman. He started walking a beat in Harlem in the 50's. He got his Ph.D. in public administration at Harvard University. He was the Chief of Police for both Kansas City, Missouri and San Jose, California. Over all, he has 35 years of police experience.

Check with him Bill. Mr. McNamara can tell you that prior to the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, drugs were legal and that there was no criminal justice problem associated with their use. He can tell you that Congress was lobbied by certain Christian prohibitionist and got their version of religion passed into federal law. (That seems like a violation of the “establishment” clasue of the First Amendment.)

If you were an unhypocritical pinhead, then you would be for the prohibition of both alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol, of course, is a true narcotic drug by definition. Tobacco, because of nicotine, is just a useless, dangerous, unhealthy but highly addictive substance.

According to federal research over 36% of prisoners had been using alcohol only when they committed their crime. Alcohol was a factor for more than 40% of prisoners in jails and state prisons for committing murder. (Drug War Facts, Alcohol, Paragraph 17.}

The overwhelming amount of violent crime related to the presently illegal drugs is directly related to the illegality of those drugs, not to their mere use, as is the case with alcohol.

And, of course, inmates in prison still get and use drugs. If that is the case, then how in the name of rational thinking can we expect to stop the use of those substances by supposedly free people?

And that brings up my final point: The Prison-Industrial Complex created by the so-called war on drugs. At the end of 2008 the total number of incarcerated people in the United States was 2,424,279. (Drug War Facts; Prisons, Jails & Probation – Overview, Paragraph 10.) Billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on the continuation of the war on drugs. It’s good business for prison builders, prison suppliers, prison guards, the police in general, and prosecutors.

America accounts for about 5% of the total world population, yet we have nearly 25% of all incarcerated people in the world. Land of liberty? Land of the free? Hardly. We are the number one jailer in the world. And a large percentage of our prison population is incarcerated for non-violent drug behavior.

So, Bill, if you want to be a patriot, rather than a pinhead. Do more research and some real logical thinking. To end the war on drugs and re-legalize their use to consenting adults would have the effect of reducing violent crimes, reducing the case load on courts, reducing prison population, reducing the access of drugs to minors. The violent drug cartels would be out of business. The violent street gangs would have to rob banks to get their money (not nearly as easy a proposition as drug dealing). The global terrorists, likewise, would have to find other funding.

Would it be a perfect world? No. But then the world had never been perfect. Would there be drug addicts? Of course, but they could easily afford the drug they are addicted to just like the winos and other alcoholics do right now. Drug re-legalization would go a long way to restoring the principle of inalienable rights in this nation. And, on balance, this nation would be a better place than it has been for many decades.


See also:

The Myth of Inalienable Rights

LEAP | Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Eklektik: Ludwig von Mises on Prohibition

Basic Facts About the War on Drugs

Narco News Publishes C.A. Fitts Guide to Narco-Dollars

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A good lawyer?

It is my strongly held belief that there is no such thing as a "good" lawyer. You can have a competent lawyer or an incompetent lawyer, but all of them are no damned good.

Too strong of a statement? Perhaps. I'm sure that there are some good people who are lawyers--that is they are trying to do the right thing (whatever that is)--and who are competent. But many, if not most lawyers, including prosecutors, are more concerned with their image, their egos, their win and loss ratios than with justice or the defendants and victims.

Again, too strong of a statement? I don't think so. Consider the Innocence Project. It's an organization dedicated to getting innocent people who have been wrongly convicted out of jail. To date, using DNA evidence they have gotten 273 innocent people released. Of those 273, 17 were on death row. (Imagine being innocent and being put to death. How many times has that happened?)On average those 273 people spent 13 years in prison for something they didn't do.

How could that happen, here, in America? They are a plethora of reasons but much of it comes back to the police, and the prosecutors in charge of the cases: Eyewitness accounts are known to be unreliable; using unproven or improperly conducted forensic techniques; false confessions due to coercion, fear of worse punishment, or mental problems; the police and prosecutors wanting to clear cases and focusing on conviction, not the search for truth and justice; paid informants; and overworked, under prepared, or just plain incompetent defense lawyers, mostly public defenders.

The rich, of course, can afford the best in defense lawyers, but that just makes those lawyers competent, but not necessarily good.

The epitome of how a lawyer thinks is President Clinton's statement in the Monica Lewinsky investigation about "what the meaning of is, is." Wow! If that didn't ring all kinds of warning bells in your brain, then you were either brain dead or a really strong Clinton/Democrat supporter.

Lawyers are taught to parse sentences--basically defining each element of a sentence, not necessarily in context to the whole. The most competent lawyers are able to take the most damning testimony and whittle it away to nearly nothing. Or, conversely, they can take the most insignificant uttering and make the proverbial molehill into a mountain.

Do lawyers do that for truth, justice, and the American way? No. They do it to win, pure and simple. Prosecutors getting convictions, right or wrong; defense attorneys getting people set free, right or wrong; it's all the same. They are either competent at what they do or they are incompetent.

So if you need an attorney, don't look for a good one. Look for a competent one.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Ice Age Now

Have you heard of or stumbled upon the web site Ice Age Now? If not, you need to go there. What this web site has to say is not only interesting, but important.

Contrary to Al Gore and those that are in his camp, there is more than sufficient true scientific evidence to point to the fact that we are about to enter another ice age. An ice age will be much worse for humans than the global warming the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been shrieking about. Think of packing for a trip to Miami, but the airplane you take lets you off in Anchorage, Alaska, in the middle of winter.

A full glacial period, like the last glacial maximum (18,000 years ago) would put Moscow, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, all of Scotland and most of England and Ireland under ice. In the Western Hemisphere, all of Canada and a substantial part of the U.S. would be under ice: all of New England, including New York City, Chicago and, on the west coast, Seattle.

Think of tens of millions of Northern Europeans heading south, starving because they haven’t been able to grow any crops. Think of 38 million Canadians doing the same thing, as well as untold millions of Americans from New England and the upper mid-west.

Unlike what we were taught in school, ice ages can come on suddenly, within 20 years, or even in as little as 3 years.

Humans are definitely not causing global warming or, as the Gorists now say, climate change. There are so many variables as to be well beyond human ability to influence it. Take CO2 for instance. Total CO2 from all sources, natural and manmade represents 4 out of 10,000 parts of our atmosphere. That is 4/100’s of 1% of our total atmosphere. Further, ice core evidence shows that first there was warming (by the sun, or undersea volcanic action)then there was CO2 rise.

Listen to Kim Greenhouse moderating at It’s Rainmaking Time, with three climate experts. This is about two hours worth of real, factual information. If you have an open mind. If you have some doubts about the human-caused global warming issue. If you are a “green” freak, but are not beyond wanting to know the truth. Then listen to this podcast. It could change your life.

To listen, click on the "play" icon below the photos of Dr. Tim Ball.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Mandatory Evacuations and Personal Liberty

Hurricane Irene is charging up the Eastern coast and will do a whole lot of damage. All up and down the Eastern Seaboard local and state governments are issuing mandatory evacuation notices. I assume that mandatory means that an individual property owner has no choice and must leave for safer ground or . . . what? Be arrested, fined? If not, then the notices wouldn't be mandatory, would they?

The rationale behind these mandatory evacuation notices is that if a person needs help, emergency crews may not be able to get to them or, if they try, the emergency personnel themselves could be injured or killed.

But, as a libertarian and from a personal liberty point of view, I believe that property owners have the right to stay with their property even if they may be seriously injured or killed. Yes, you, as an adult, have the right to endanger your life as crazy as that may be. Think of all the dead, frozen bodies on the way to top of Mt. Everest.

Of course, to not evacuate in the face of the great danger that this hurricane presents can only be a choice for an adult. Children must be evacuated. They don't have the knowledge and experience to be able to make a truly informed choice about whether to go or to stay; whether to risk life and limb.

Having said that, there is one other caveat for those who ignore the evacuation notices and it is this: You made your choice and you are on your own. We (rescue crews) will not come back for you. If you are seriously injured or die that is strickly your responsibility and you cannot sue the city, county, state, or federal government because of your adult--and stupid--decision.

That is the nature of true presonal liberty: making decisions and living with the consequences and not blaming others if things go wrong.

So the evacuation notices should be that it is strongly recommended for you (an adult) to leave but if you choose not to, then you are on your own come hell or high water. You and only you will be responsible for whatever happens to you.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

How the present tax code doesn’t work

General Electric is one of the biggest corporations in the U.S., possible the biggest. They made news by reporting a profit of 14 billion dollars for last year . . . and paying zero income taxes.

Say what!?

That’s right, G.E. paid zero income taxes. Here are some highlights:

1. G.E. made 5.1 billon dollars in the U.S. The rest of the 14 billion was made overseas, in countries that have much lower corporate tax rates.

2. G.E. hires 900 people to scour the laws to take advantage of all the loopholes. Small companies have a very hard time just handling all the government regulations and tax code.

3. G.E. has the biggest lobbying group in Washington, D.C. (Government regulations slow down small companies and inhibits job growth, but big companies can afford to hire people in their accounting/legal departments. See 2, above.)

4. G.E. plays the “green” game and gets tax credits for putting up wind generators.

5. The U.S. government subsidized (welfare) G.E. to move a refrigerator factory from Indiana to Mexico.

6. G.E. is shutting down an incandescent light bulb factory in the U.S. and has financed factories in China to make those new, longer lasting, compact florescent light bulbs . . . you know, the ones with mercury in them. (Do an internet search on what you should do if you break one of those bulbs in your house or place of business. It ain’t pretty.)

7. G.E. has moved 20,000 U.S. jobs overseas.

Now, to be fair, it’s not just G.E. Other large multinational corporations, like Exxon-Mobile, don’t pay any taxes either. And there is an argument to be made that corporations shouldn’t be taxed at all, just the individual people who receive income from them whether from salary, hourly wages, benefits, or dividend payments.

Still, the present tax code is the tax code we all have to go by. And it seems more than a bit unfair that a giant like G.E., who can make billions of dollars can then use that complicated, arcane, complex tax code to end up paying nothing at the end of the year.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Big "Pharma", Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court

(Find the full story at: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/03/22/betrayal-of-consumers-by-us-supreme-court-gives-total-liability-shield-to-big-pharma.aspx )


In February of this year the Supreme Court, by a 6 to 2 vote decided to protect drug companies from any legal liabilities for “harm caused by vaccines” that they make. This only applies to government mandated vaccines (like what you have to get your children for school). There is evidence that some vaccines could be made safer but the drug companies have refused to do so.

Some of the negative reactions to some vaccines are: paralysis, epilepsy, autism, asthma, diabetes, and mental retardation.

How could the Supreme Court do this? It seems that in 1982 the biggest parmaceutical companies (Wyeth, Lederle, Connaught, and Merck) told Congress that they would stop selling vaccines in America unless they were protected from lawsuits.

Parents now have no way to sue parmaceutical companies for harm caused to their children from government required vaccinations. But, on a brighter note, you’ll all be happy to know that a day after this decision the Big Court opened the legal channels so that you can sue automakers for “failing to make seat belts safer.” Go firgure!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Crime, Organized Crime, and Criminals

1. Crime, in its most basic and secular definition, is the violation of the rights of others without good cause. Everything else that some people might find to be incorrect behavior is sin. Good cause for the violation of the rights of others only applies when said violation is committed in defense of self, loved ones, innocent others, or property.

2. Organized crime is the violation of the rights of others by members of an organized group or gang—an organization.

3. A government, by definition, is an organized group or gang—an organization.

4. A person who knowingly and willingly works for an organization that violates the rights
of others is culpable for those crimes under the criminal conspiracy laws even though he or she may not have participated in the actual violation of anyone’s rights.

5. Under a system of inalienable rights, a person owns the property of his or her body and mind. It is his or her inalienable right to use such property anyway he or she chooses, just so long as said use does not violate the rights of others. This assumes consenting adult behavior.

6. Any law by a secular government that prohibits the use of one’s body and mind as one chooses, where such use does not violate the rights of others, is itself a violation of the rights of consenting adults. Such laws and prohibitions are illegitimate under the principle of inalienable rights and are criminal in nature.

7. The present scheme of drug laws (among others) in the United States prohibit individuals from freely exercising their right to use the property of their bodies and minds as they choose, where such use does not violate the rights of others.

8. Due to said drug laws of the federal government and the governments of the several states, the United States of America makes up one of the largest rights-violating organization in the world. It is organized crime personified.

9. All of the people who make up the federal government and the governments of the several states, whether elected, appointed, or hired, and who have sworn to uphold the laws of those governments that violate the rights of citizens, specifically, the drug laws, are culpable members of an organized crime gang that has conspired to violate the rights of citizen and are, therefore, criminals.

10. In any truly civilized nation it is without a doubt that the violation of rights without good cause (crime) should not go unpunished. That is to say, those who actually violate the rights of others, or those who knowingly and willingly belong to and participate in an organized crime group or gang, should be punished directly for their actions or as coconspirators.

11. The drug laws of the United States violate the inalienable rights of otherwise honest, peaceful, consensually behaving adults who wish to use certain drugs (other than alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine). Therefore all government workers in the United States, who take an oath to uphold these rights-violating laws, are rights-violating criminals. They are criminals, either directly, by their actions, or indirectly, by knowingly and willingly working for a criminal, rights-violating organization under the criminal conspiracy laws. As such, those government workers should be punished.

12. In the alternative, the federal government and the governments of the several states should announce the nullification of the principle of inalienable rights and the institution of a system of government-granted privileges in the place of said rights. They should also declare that they are not secular governments, but rather, that they are religiously or personal morally based governments enforcing the personal moral and religious beliefs of some of the people and that sins are now criminal offenses, punishable by fines, imprisonment, or even the death penalty.


* * * * *

A set of beliefs about the nature, cause, and purpose of the world or universe and having a moral code dictating proper human conduct is a religion. Every person’s personal moral beliefs constitutes that person’s religious basis, whether shared by others or not. If we are not ruled by secular laws, then we are ruled by religious laws . . . and that is exactly what the drug prohibition laws are, regardless of the obvious fact that millions of people in the United States do not subscribe to that religion nor belong to that church.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Tunisia

Tunisia is a small North African nation. Ninety-nine percent of the population is Muslim. It was once a protectorate of France, but won it’s independence in 1956. Now, there have been massive and violent riots in Tunisia and the president, Ben Ali, has fled to Saudi Arabia.

Tunisia calls itself a Republic, but in reality, since it’s independence from France, it has been a dictatorship, run by only two “elected” presidents. From 1956 to 1987 it was Bourguiba. Then, Ben Ali overthrew him and has ruled from 1987 to present.

To its credit, the Tunisian government has a strong women’s rights position. It banned polygamy, a first among Arab nations. Women not only can go to school but it is encouraged. Women can have their own bank accounts and get their own passports. There are many women lawyers and judges.

That’s all well and good, but in reality there is little political freedom, Freedom of association and speech is restricted, and there is no freedom of the press. In fact the Reporters without Borders list of World Press Freedom places Tunisia at 154 out of the 173 nations on the list. The U.S. State Department’s yearly human rights report states that torture and abuse of prisoners, especially political prisoners is ongoing. (If you click on the link, above, scroll down to the heading “Government and Political Conditions,” fifth paragraph.)

The U.S. government has supported the Tunisian government for decades despite the repression of their citizens. Tunisia has strong laws against terrorism but it has used those laws more to suppress opposition to strongman, Ben Ali than to fight global terrorism.

The U.S. Embassy, in one of the cables released by WikiLeaks, stated in no uncertain terms that “Tunisia is a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems.” (If you click on the link, above, scroll down to the highlighted portions.)

Basically, the U.S. has been supporting—politically and, to some extent economically—a right wing dictatorship with “serious human rights problems.” To put it another way, the U.S. government talks out of both sides of its mouth; condemning human rights violation in nations that it is unfriendly with, but ignoring such violation in nations it supports.

In the world of logic there is a spectrum of political governance ranging from anarchy (no, not the wild-eyed, bomb-throwing types, rather the Libertarian, voluntary society types) to a completely government regulated society. I call it 0% governance by others to 100% governance by others. There is no true anarchic nation on this Earth, just as there is no 100% government regulated nation. However, most nation are over the 50% mark and the Ben Ali government of Tunisia was much higher up the scale. And a rights-violating government, whether you called it right-wing or socialist or communist, is still a rights-violating government.

And now, in other Arab nations there are demonstrations in support of the Tunisian people and against Arab dictator-type rulers. It’s not pro-American in nature, either, since the U.S. Government was obviously a supporter of the oppressive regime of Ben Ali. This should give American politicians and those in the State Department pause to consider what their foreign policies are really doing. It should give them pause, but it probably won’t.