The Lone Libertarian

I don’t know if this sort of activity happens in the Tennessee legislature (I am investigating), but this is appalling.

Watch how Texas representatives vote:

This sounds familiar. Lawmakers are breaking their own rules they set for themselves because they

We have a lot of votes. We have a lot of amendments, and there’s times we don’t break for lunch and we don’t break for dinner. We don’t have bathroom breaks.

I wish I could use that excuse for all of my non-voting friends, and cast votes on their behalf.

It would appear that some candidates for Memphis City Council and Mayor whom are striving to restore public trust in local government haven’t been exemplary in their past/current behavior.

• District 1 - Jesse Jeff - Three bankruptcies since 1997
• District 2 - Scott Pearce - Unpaid $552,000 judgment
• District 5 - Jeff Bailey - Patronizing prostitution
• District 5 - Kerry Rogers - Drugs, reckless driving, bankruptcy
• District 7 - Veronica Castillo - Five bankruptcies since 1995
• District 7 - Preston Poindexter - Two bankruptcies since 1995, lost home in March foreclosure
• District 7 (INCUMBENT) - Barbara Swearengen Ware - $1,379 in delinquent property taxes
• District 8 (Pos 1) - Tiffany Lowe - Felony forgery and assault convictions
• District 8 (Pos 3) - Del Gill - Bankruptcy, reckless driving conviction
• District 9 (Pos 3) - Reid Hedgepeth - $33,202 in delinquent property taxes
• Mayoral - James McKay - Convictions for possession of controlled substance, violating probation, DUI, disturbing the peace
• City Clerk - Latroy Williams - $124,000 in delinquent property taxes

This is really an embarrassment to West Tennessee. Voter beware!

Speaking of the waste of time that was the condemnation of Moveon.org for its New York Times ad, here is a nugget from US Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN 7th).

This really makes me cringe.

Hot on the heels of the “Tennessee Smoking Ban” set to begin on October 1st, it appears that Tennessee State Troopers (and Department of Revenue “Agents”) are going to stop motorists suspected of buying large quantities of cigarettes from neighboring states, charging them with possession of contraband and impounding their vehicles.

Agents have already been watching out-of-state stores that sell cigarettes near the Tennessee border to “get a feel where problem areas are,”

Hello New Tennessee Order. By “law” you are only allowed to carry two cartons of cigarettes from neighboring states into Tennessee.

Since Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen decided it would be a good idea to raise the cigarette tax from 20 cents per pack to 62 cents per pack, I guess Tennesseans close to the border states are buying their cigarettes elsewhere. It would seem that Mississippi and Missouri are attractive due to their taxes of 18 cents and 17 cents respectively.

Enter my question. Why is it a crime to seek a lower price for an item? Why doesn’t Tennessee stop Tennesseans who buy groceries and miscellaneous things in Mississippi (7% vs. 9.25% sales tax)? I saw a van full of stuff from a Sam’s Club entering Tennessee from Mississippi last week. It looked like there could have been $40-$50 of lost Tennessee revenue within the confines of the vehicle. Who should I contact about this attempt to cheat Tennessee out of it’s rightful share?

Seriously, what is the difference? Either way, taxes were not paid to Tennessee, and they stand to lose more money on the sales tax discrepancy than the cigarette tax.

On the matter, State Representative Stacey Campfield had the following to say.

“We’re not regulating the purchase of anything in another state,” he said. “We’re regulating the possession of contraband in Tennessee.”

Smokers beware of the temptation to posses “contraband” in Tennessee.

From the same US Congress that brought you “Freedom Fries” and long hearings on steroid use in Major League Baseball comes another great waste of time and taxpayer dollars, condemning an ad in a newspaper.

On September 20th the US Senate voted to condemn the Moveon.org’s full page ad in the New York Times that heavily criticizes General David Patreus’s performance in the Iraq war.

Senate Amendment S.AMDT.2934 to House Bill H.R.1585 is the note of condemnation.

The text of the amendment is the following.

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

The US House followed suit on Wednesday, September 26th with a 341-79 vote on H.J. Res 52 during house roll call 910.

So, my question is what exactly is the point of this condemnation? There doesn’t appear to be any teeth to either act.  Yay, Congress disapproves of a newspaper ad.

Is this what our government is in the business of now?  Condemning every remark from a dissenting group and responding to newspaper ads with debate and votes?

Maybe I should count my blessings.  Any minute of Congressional time spent debating and voting on opinions is better than a minute of time plotting how to increase the size of government.

While reading Reason at lunch, I found the following official proclamation by Alabama Governor Bob Riley (R).

“I, Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby encourage citizens of Alabama to pray daily for rain and proclaim June 30 - July 7, 2007 as Days of Prayer for Rain. During this time, I encourage all Alabamians to pray individually and within their houses of worship for sufficient rain.”

Was this really necessary? I wonder how much tax dollars went into preparing this statement and conducting a press release.

Looking at National Weather Service climate data, it appears that the prayers were not answered in Birmingham in July as rainfall was 1.66 inches lower than normal. However, in August rainfall was 1.4 inches higher than normal.

By the delayed response, I guess the prayers were sent via the US Postal Service.

2008 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made a chilling statement yesterday to an Associated Press reporter.

She said she could envision a day when “you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,”

Wow. What form of tyranny is this?

Think about that for a second. Showing my proof of insurance to an employer during a job interview? Papers please? Why would my insurance status matter to an employer whether I am using private insurance or state-funded insurance? My personal business is my personal business. This is a dangerous statement from a reckless politician.

Here’s an even better question, why would any American believe that this “universal healthcare” she keeps touting would ever work? Two of the biggest social programs that tax dollars fund, Social Security and Medicare, are in jeopardy. Why start a new social program when you have others that are beginning to fail? Why don’t we instead end these social programs and display that there are free market alternatives that will in the long-run be cheaper for individuals and will give a higher rate of return?

Let’s face it, when government blocks out competition, in the case of Medicare, private insurance for the people that qualify is high because the demand is blacked out by government competition with seemingly unlimited funds. In the case of Social Security, again, government gives a low rate of return (partially because they cannot afford to give more, and also because they don’t have to) because the taxpayer cannot take those funds they pay into the system and allocate it among competitive retirement funds, and be able to leave the accrued funds to family members upon death.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care

Strong-arming Americans to participate in government programs just doesn’t sit well with me. I wonder how some of these bureaucrats can sleep at night when they mandate, by using government force and it’s hired guns, citizens to participate in these endeavors and then claim that we are a free nation.

Whatever happened to exploring a free market approach? Healthcare is not a right, just like a 40″ plasma TV isn’t a right. I don’t see it listed in the Constitution, and natural law doesn’t provide for it.

To quote Harry Browne, “Government doesn’t work.” The free market is the only viable long-term solution.

Yesterday, a University of Florida student that had a dissenting opinion at a Kerry forum was met with excessive police force. The student, Andrew Meyer, asked several inflammatory questions of John Kerry, including why he didn’t move forward with the impeachment of President Bush, along with some conspiratorial Skull & Bones questions. The guy was your garden variety conspiracy theorist that was being a little annoying.

To John Kerry’s credit, he was willing to address the questions of the student. The student got a little belligerant, so they cut his off his microphone. He then started to plainly yell his rhetoric. However, the university police (read: rent-a-goons), tried to cuff him.

I can see no reason for arresting this man, and really all they should have done was remove him from the forum for being disruptive. They did not give him a reason for his arrest (“Put your hands behind your back” is not a reason), thus he resisted.

This guy looks pretty puny. If four cops could not subdue this small man, who looks like the only workout he has gotten all week is from clicking keys on a keyboard, then they need to put down the doughnuts.

There was no reason to resort to tasing Mr. Meyer. I’m sure they all had a good chuckle about this incident over beers after their shift. What a despicable display of force.

Memphis prides itself as being the “Transportation Hub of the US.” Living in West Tennessee, as many would guess, I work in the transportation industry. I recall as a greenhorn, learning that goods that were shipped from Mexico had to be transferred to US trucks in a buffer zone beyond the US border (up to 25 miles within our border) and then they would return to their domiciles. I recall thinking that that was a silly and inefficient way of doing things, until I saw a few Mexican rigs up close and personal.

Many Mexican rigs (and trailers) are old US rigs that were sold due to their age and non-compliance to newer DOT standards over the years. Some of these vehicles are so derrilect, I’m surprised they still run. Many would not pass US clean air laws, and are generally unsafe on the road (especially some of the trailers they pull).

When NAFTA was passed, Clinton faced serious criticism for the provisions that would allow Mexican truck drivers over our roads, so he did not implement this element during his tenure.

Many Mexican drivers were 18, did not have adequate training for the rig they were driving, were not subject to regular medical exams, did not have to submit to drug tests, were not limited to the number of hours they could work, and were making only a few dollars a day.

Fast forward to 2007.  The Bush administration  creates a pilot program for allowing Mexican trucks roll over our roads, first allowing up to 100 trucking companies access.  The pilot started September 7th, 2007 after the Teamsters attempted to block the pilot in the 9th Circuit Court.

What really disappoints me about this whole situation is the fact that there was no debate on the floor of the House or the Senate about this issue. Our elected representatives were going to allow this action to go unchecked until public hysteria over a dynamite truck exploding and killing 34 people in Mexico on September 9th. It is no wonder Congress has the lowest approval rating in the history of our nation.

Now both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate agree that this pilot isn’t such a great idea after all due to public safety.   On September 11th Senate Amendment  2797  to HR3074 was proposed to defund the pilot.  It passed  74-24.  Now I guess we’ll have to see what the President does about it.  I’m not hopeful.

Proactive government scares me. Reactive government scares me worse.

As a libertarian I am an advocate of free trade, but not at the expense of public safety.

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An interesting story came across my desk from the Mises Institute a few days ago, and I think it really displays how “un-free” our free market really is in the US. The premise of the story is the age old question, “Why does American soda not taste as good as foreign sodas?” (In my opinion most notably sodas sold in Mexico and the Caribbean.)

The answer is not necessarily the fact that high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than cane sugar, or that it is better for you, or that it tastes better (because that most definitely isn’t true).

An import quota and higher tariffs on foreign sugar was lobbied for by domestic farmers in 1982, thus using the strong arm of government to force domestic soda manufacturers to buy an inferior domestic product to sweeten their products. In effect, the government has legislated that we get to ingest an inferior product that is comprised of more processed additives and chemicals than the rest of the world.

The lesson here is that as long as government is involved, no market is free.