Monthly Archives: November 2008
Will There be Change?
Quote of the Day: “If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.” — William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) Source: “The Forgotten Man and Other Essays,” 1919
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Subject: Will seven years of damage to civil liberties be reversed?
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We heard it repeatedly: “Change we can believe in.” That’s what the President-elect promised. Do you expect it?
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Well, we’re going to demand it.
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Our civil liberties were trashed during the last seven years.
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Habeas Corpus. Torture. Warrantless spying. And more. Where do we begin? For one thing . . .
We favor the strongest business regulation
Quote of the Day: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
:::– James Bovard, Source: Lost Rights. The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1994), p. 333
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Subject: We favor the strongest possible form of business regulation
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Free market advocates must speak in favor of business regulation. This may sound strange, but that’s only because the politicians have conditioned us to think about things in the wrong way.
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The politicians are busy blaming DE-regulation for the current financial crisis. This is partly self-serving, but it’s also due to a defect in the way politicians think.
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The politicians think government regulations are the ONLY regulations that exist. Therefore, in their mind, to repeal a government regulation is to DE-regulate.
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They are very wrong.
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Often, the repeal of a government regulation will result in the restoration of free market regulations that are far stronger.
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Free market regulation comes in several forms…
Guess what else is in the bailout bill
Quote of the Day: “Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.” — John Perry Barlow
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Subject: Bailout bill contains buried provisions to invade your privacy
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Do you think the IRS should set up undercover operations to entrap unsuspecting taxpayers?
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Do you think the IRS should release your confidential tax returns to law enforcement and intelligence agencies upon request?
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If you answered “No!” to either question, you’re out of luck. Before its October recess, Congress passed a bill giving the IRS these powers.
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You may ask, “Why didn’t Downsize DC oppose this bill?”
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As a matter of fact, we wrote against it virtually non-stop for two weeks!
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Don’t remember?
$61 billion stimulus package failed in the Senate
Media Alert: Jim Babka will be on the radio today and Sunday. See the P.S. below the signature.
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Quote of the Day: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power.” — Benjamin Franklin
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Subject: $61 billion stimulus package failed in the Senate
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Lost in the noise of the election was the good news that the Senate rejected a $61 billion stimulus package that the House had passed earlier.
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But House Democrats are still pushing for another stimulus package that they will try to pass in a lame duck session. The details are constantly shifting, but this proposal would add another $150 billion to $165 billion to a national debt that has grown by nearly a trillion dollars in the space of about a month.
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The good news on this front is that a new stimulus package will once again meet resistance in the Senate, and the Bush White House has signaled that it will not support the package.
Jim Babka on March of Liberty Radio
Downsize DC President Jim Babka will be appearing on the March of Liberty internet radio show this Sunday, November 9. The show airs at 7:00 pm Eastern, and Jim is expected to appear around 7:30. If you miss the live broadcast, archives are available on the March of Liberty site.
Not your usual post-election commentary
Quote of the Day: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” — William Shakespeare
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Subject: Not your usual post-election commentary
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The media describes every election as historic, the most important in a generation, etc. When the voting is done they tell us a new era has dawned, that things will change, that nothing will ever be the same, blah, blah, blah.
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One aspect of these claims is true, this time. It is both historic and meaningful that the United States has elected its first African-American president. We applaud and celebrate this. We think the significance of this event transcends mere symbolism. Otherwise, the election was what all other elections have been . . .
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” . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
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Can we support this harsh assessment? Consider . . .
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The election thoroughly repudiated the Republican Party. They lost the White House in a landslide, and got clobbered in Congressional races. We might assume from this, if elections really produced change, that many Republican policies of the last eight years will be reversed. We predict that almost none of them will be.
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The Republicans were responsible for . . .
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* Enacting the largest new entitlement in decades — the prescription drug program
:::* Passing social engineering schemes like “No Child Left Behind”
:::* Starting an un-provoked war
:::* Gutting constitutional liberties
:::* Running-up vast deficits
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Will the Democrats reverse any of these actions? Sadly, we think the answer is “No.” What, then, was the point of the election?
A state of permanent preparedness for impeachment
Quote of the Day: “Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.” Source: “Minority Report” (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 [1956]), p. 222
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Subject: A state of permanent preparedness for impeachment
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It’s Election Day. What should we say about it? We’re tempted to declare it a day of mourning, but instead, we’re going to argue that today is the day to adopt a state of permanent preparedness for impeachment.
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As of yet, neither a Democrat nor a Republican has been elected President. That outcome will be revealed later today. But before that happens, we should commit ourselves to closely monitor the actions of the new President, and to be ready to call for his impeachment, should that become warranted.
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We should be prepared to do this regardless of partisan loyalties.
Federal hordes pillage Mongol property
Quotes of the Day:
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“If the court grants our request … then if any law enforcement officer sees a Mongol wearing his patch, he will be authorized to stop that gang member and literally take the jacket right off his back.” – U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien
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“The government can’t ban confederate flags, swastikas, or klan robes, and it sure as hell can’t ban the display of the Mongols’ logo.” – Marc J. Randazza
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“What if the government had decided that, because of the Watergate scandal, nobody could use the word Republican again? – Zeichner Ellman
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Subject: Federal hordes pillage Mongol property
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The case hasn’t even gone to trial yet , but U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper has authorized the seizure of the defendants’ . . .
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* Clothing, motorcycles, and other property bearing the Mongols trademark.
:::* Any similar property bearing the trademark that belongs to the defendants’ “agents, servants, employees, family members, and those persons in active concert or participation with them.”
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In other words, many people who weren’t even indicted will have their property seized.
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This ruling has serious problems . . .