Is the ObamaCare Ruling a Positive Development?

So, according to the Supreme Court, the federal government cannot mandate that you purchase health insurance, but they can fine you for not doing so, just as long as the fine can be 'interpreted' to be a tax. The logical outcome of this, of course, is that government can now use taxes to compel any sort of behavior. Want to own a gun? The government cannot stop you, but what if they decide to levy a $10,000 annual 'firearms possession tax' for each gun you own? Maybe you don't want to drive a Chevy Volt. That's OK; just pay the $15,000/year tax for not owning a hybrid vehicle. Neither of these ideas differs qualitatively from the idea that government can levy a tax for not participating in the health insurance industry.

There will, of course, be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over this ruling. For the next few days, we'll all be subjected to the cries that this decision heralds the end of the republic and freedom as we know it. One place you won't hear that, though, is here. That's because, as I've stated numerous times, the republic is already dead. Sure, ObamaCare is unconstitutional, but here is a short list of other federal actions and SCOTUS rulings that violate the Constitution:

• The Social Security Act of 1935 (never challenged in court; the overall feeling among those who wrote the damn thing was that it could not hold up to a Constitutional challenge).
• The National Firearms Act of 1934 (and all subsequent federal gun control legislation). While states have the right to control firearms, the 2nd Amendment specifically places gun control out of the hands of the central government.
• Federally-mandated security screenings at airports, which violate the Fourth Amendment's 'probable cause' requirement.
• Administrative warrants issued by any executive agency, which violate the Fourth Amendment's 'probable cause' requirement.
• Hirabayashi v. United States and Korematsu v. United States, In which the Supreme Court upheld the internment of United States citizens without due process, in violation of the Fifth Amendment
• The Sedition Act of 1918, under which individuals were imprisoned for political speech, in violation of the First Amendment.

The truth is, the Supreme Court, along with the other branches of the federal Leviathan, have little regard for, or fidelity to, the Constitution, and such has been the case for more than a century. Whatever our federal betters decide to do, it will be done, and the proper justification will be rationalized, Constitutional intent be damned. The ObamaCare decision is just one more in a long list of violations the American public have been subjected to. It is nothing new or unique.

What it is, however, is unpopular. The American public has consistently demonstrated that it is against this legislation, and the contempt for the people's will, coupled with the dismissal of legitimate Constitutional challenges, may finally result in a few more people realizing that the monster in Washington, D.C. is their enemy. Since I do not believe that the corrupt cesspool that sits on the Potomac river is capable of reforming itself, I don't really care what garbage they come out with, as long as it finally gets people to realize that we must act to restore our liberty. Insofar as this decision advances this, I see it as positive.

Impeachment, Politics, and the Lawless Executive

Courtesy two different conservative bloggers this past Friday, treatises on why we should and should not impeach President Obama. First, at The Lonely Conservative, guest writer Robert Owens details why the President should face impeachment:

If Congress does not assert its place as a co-equal branch of government, the Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama will continue to usurp power. From recess appointments while Congress is in session to refusing to enforce the laws of the land this President is fundamentally transforming our system of government. Not through the amendment process, but through a campaign of unconstitutional and therefore illegal actions designed to buy him enough votes for a second term...

...We, the lovers of freedom and the supporters of limited government cannot merely wait the clock out on the Obama presidency. Because if he wins another term with all these affronts to constitutional government unchallenged, combined with a campaign based upon class warfare and the redistribution of wealth, he and his statist backers will declare it a mandate for more of the same, on steroids. An oligarchy of the perpetually re-elected veneered over a permanent nomenclature of federal bureaucrats will easily fall in line behind a complacent and complicit media to cheer the new order as the soft tyranny of the central planners tell us what is best for us and then forces us to say thank you.

Protest the lawless Progressive counter-revolution! Contact you Representative and demand an impeachment hearing to investigate President Obama for the High Crimes of subverting the Constitution. He should be investigated for:

• making recess appointments while Congress was still in session
• for ignoring his obligation to enforce the laws of the land in the areas of Immigration and the Defense of Marriage Act
• for incorrectly using a claim of Executive Privilege to cover up reckless and possibly criminal activity in the Fast and Furious scandal.

In response, Bill Quick at Daily Pundit argues that impeachment would be a mistake:

Sorry, but this is nuts.

Impeachment and conviction is the most political process open to the federal government. It is simply not a matter of law, and zealots don’t seem to understand this fact. Congress has the power to impeach, convict,and remove a president for anything it feels like – or nothing. There is no constitutional power that allows any other body to override an impeachment decision. A presxident cannot veto it, nor can the supreme court review it...

...A Democrat-controlled Senate is not going to convict Obama, so using a GOP-controlled House to impeach him is gestural only. And it is not a gesture that should, or needs to be made. We can, should, and will term-limit Obama out of the White House in a bit more than four months.

That’s enough. To hell with the wet dreams of impeaching him.

There's quite a bit to unpack with regards to this issue, and both Owens and Quick bring up points that need to be evaluated. In the end, both men make a point, and what that point says about the state of our Republic isn't good.

First, let's take a look at Owens' argument for impeachment. He is, I think effectively, making a legal case that Barack Obama has failed to uphold his duties as President of the United States, and that such failure crosses the line from incompetence to illegality. Rather than just being a president whose policies and politics many of us disagree with, Obama has on numerous occasions violated his oath to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." A short list of the violations is as follows:

• Commitment of troops to offensive military action in Libya without Congressional authorization, in violation of Article I, Section 8.
• For making executive appointments without Senate approval while the Senate was in session, in violation of Article II, Section 2.
• For refusal to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" with respect to DOMA and federal immigration law, in violation of Article II, Section 3.

This is not a list of the things Barack Obama has done that I disagree with politically (such a list would be orders of magnitude longer); these are direct violations of his Constitutional oath. As such, there should be no argument that President Obama at least could be impeached and tried.

Quick, however, makes no such case. Instead, his argument against impeachment seems to be more along pragmatic lines. The core argument seems to boil down to two key points:

• Impeachment is a political move which will blow up in the GOP's face were it used.
• With the Senate in Democratic control, a conviction would not happen, so there is no point in bringing charges.

There are, I think, a few holes in Quick's reasoning. First, while he claims that impeachment is "...simply not a matter of law," and that "Congress has the power to impeach, convict,and remove a president for anything it feels like – or nothing," these things are simply not true. The United States Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach and remove from office on "Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." While Quick is correct to note that there is no method of recourse for an improper impeachment, this does not change the fact that the Constitutional requirements for removal of office are conviction of a crime. "...anything it feels like - or nothing." is simply not a Constitutionally defensible reason for impeachment, so Quick is incorrect here. Second, he equates the desire to bring Obama up on charges with a desire "to send a message, or register disapproval, or set an example..." This is also simply not the case. As I said above, I dislike Obama for a lot of reasons, but disagreement with policy or political views does not justify impeachment. I will register my disapproval in November by voting for someone else. However, what I do think is justified is using the impeachment power to punish impeachable offenses, which I have outlined in part above. I'm not advocating removal from office because I don't like the guy; I'm advocating removal from office in order to preserve what is left of the rule of law in this country.

That being said, Quick does make two very valid points: first, any attempt at impeachment will be misrepresented by both the Democratic party and their sycophants in the media as petty politics, racism, political racism, racist politics, etc. He is also correct that there is no way that the Senate, being controlled by the Democratic party, would convict Obama. It will not happen. This leads me to a few conclusions about the state of the union, none of which are pretty:

• The American people are largely stupid and ignorant, and will buy any lie that is fed to them by the media. They are ignorant of the Constitution, ignorant of the proper role of the Presidency, and their lack of intellectual curiosity makes them easily misled. This is not a group of people that are capable of self-government.
• Politicians are more about party unity than the rule of law. Obama is a lawless executive, and his illegal activity should lead to removal, regardless of party affiliation. The fact that it will not means that the republic is dead. A government that refuses to enforce the rule of law is a government which has abrogated its only legitimate purpose.

I've heard a lot of people say that the upcoming presidential election is about the future of the republic. It is not. The republic is dead, and the fact that we are talking about removing a lawless man from the Presidency through election rather than trial is proof of this.

Please - Don't Do This

A few days ago, I posted a picture of a car covered in bumper stickers and stated that my theory with regards to political/social issue bumper stickers is that the level of intellect of the driver is inversely proportional to the number of stickers.

Yesterday, my mom emailed me the following picture:

Now, if anything, this one is far worse, at least from my perspective. The reason is that the driver of the vehicle is expressing two beliefs: Jesus is King, and abortion is murder, which happen to be two beliefs that I hold as well. I consider my self a follower of Jesus, and believe that abortion ends the life of a human being without proper justification, which means it is murder. So, at least in principle, I agree with the driver of this van. And that's where the problem lies.

See, my theory still holds - I believe that the stickers and window paint make this individual look like a nutcase, in much the same way as the Volvo picture I posted last week. And if a nutcase holds a particular set of beliefs, those beliefs are easy to dismiss (this is actually a logical fallacy called "guilt by association," but  its status as a fallacy doesn't diminish the damage). I realize that this person probably believes that they are getting the word out with regards to both Jesus and abortion, but, like the politically opposite owner of the Volvo, the method in which the word is spread leaves one wondering about the mental stability of the one spreading it, which by extension damages the word itself. As I replied to my mother:

"I'm sure people see that all the time and think 'Well, this gentleman makes quite a rational case for the Christian faith. Perhaps I should look into this Jesus fellow.'"

The point to take away from this is that even when you are passionate about a message, it is important to express said message in a coherent, attractive manner. You can be right all day long, but if your audience walks away believing you are out of your mind, the message will fall on deaf ears.

So please, don't do this. Unless you disagree with me, in which case, knock yourself out.

The Obama Messiah Complex

Today, Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large for Breitbart News, shares an email he received from the Obama campaign, ostensibly from Michelle Obama herself, in which she implies that Barack Obama is the nation's husband:

For the first 10 years of our marriage, Barack and I lived in an apartment in my hometown of Chicago.

The winters there can be pretty harsh, but no matter how snowy or icy it got, Barack would head out into the cold -- shovel in hand -- to dig my car out before I went to work.

In all our years of marriage, he's always looked out for me. Now, I see that same commitment every day to you and to this country.

Shapiro then goes on to joke about Obama creating at least one "shovel ready" job, and Ace quips:

"In a way, he is like my husband. He doesn't do anything I want him to do and spends all day on the golfcourse."

Of course, a premise this ridiculous is ripe for parody, but part of the joking is a natural response to the fact that Michelle Obama making the American public her 300 million metaphorical sister wives is just plain creepy. There is something deeply unsettling about this kind of comparison, and for those of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ, it is particularly offensive.

The reason for this is that scripture refers to believers collectively as the "Bride of Christ." According to scripture, our marriages are to be (imperfect) reflections of Jesus' relation to his followers. Ephesians 5:25 instructs men to "...love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." The book of Revelation has several references to the Church as the Bride and Jesus as the Bridegroom. By attempting to describe Barack Obama as the United States' husband, Michelle Obama's fundraising email is using Messianic imagery to describe a mere man, and not a particularly impressive one at that.

The President's narcissism is clearly displayed in every speech he makes, where listeners are treated to repeated uses of "me, me, me" and "I, I, I," - it seems that every positive thing that has ever happened in America can be attributed to him. In one particularly outlandish example, the President even had mentions of his own accomplishments inserted into the official White House website biographies of every president from Calvin Coolidge forward (with the exception of Gerald Ford). Now, it appears that his campaign has graduated to using Christological imagery to promote their chosen savior. Not only is this blasphemous, but history shows us that attempts to build a messianic cult of personality around a political leader never end well.

The Lethal Consequences of Socialized Medicine

According to a consultant for Britain's National Health Service (NHS), one of the ways that the NHS frequently deals with difficult patients or lack of beds is by simply killing old people off:

"NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.

Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.

...Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’.

He cited ‘pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients’ as factors."

While this story is despicable, it should come as a surprise to no one. After all, if history has taught us anything, it is that government control always results in shortages and inefficiency, and that the response to shortages and inefficiency is, almost without fail, the reduction of human life to commodity status. In 1932-1933, for example, central planning and the forced collectivization of farms in Ukraine led to famine. The Soviet Union's response? Allow over six million citizens to starve to death. This, however, was seen as a victory by the Stalinist regime. According to one of Stalin's lieutenants, the famine demonstrated "who is the master here. It cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay."


In communist China, the death toll is even more staggering: during the Great Leap Forward, which lasted from 1958 to 1962, Mao Zedong attempted to force China to catch up to the West. The result was the deaths, through starvation, overwork, or execution, of over 45 million people during those four years. This has earned Mao a particularly grisly honor: he is the greatest mass murderer in history, having racked up a body count comparable to Hitler and Stalin combined. Of course, the fact that both of these efforts were not only violent, but ended up being utter failures, only serves as yet more proof that collectivist systems cannot compete with freedom.


These stories are not unique; the plain fact is that in every instance, an increase in government control has led to a decrease in the respect for the dignity of individual human life. This is actually a logical outcome of the socialist/collectivist philosophy, because while libertarian societies place focus on the individual (promoting both individual liberty and individual responsibility), socialist societies place the focus on the community at large, and in such a system, individuals don't matter as much, and indeed many place a burden on the overall community. Since the community, not the individual, takes priority, it's no surprise that the natural reaction to a burdensome individual is to kill them off. Add to this the inefficiency and unproductive nature of government control, and the result will be (as history has clearly demonstrated) a society characterized by misery and want.


Proponents of socialized medicine like to focus on the "fairness" of such a system, and use cases of critically ill individuals left penniless by costly treatments as examples of a broken system. However, what those proponents fail to mention is that the "fair" socialized systems just leave everyone with a lower standard of care. Rationing, waiting lists, withholding of life-saving screening procedures, and the aforementioned killing off of elderly patients in the name of cost savings are all inevitable outcomes of a socialized system. To cry about a few individuals who have problems receiving care in order to promote a system that will undoubtedly result in all individuals having problems receiving care may be "fair" but it is hardly superior.


In reality, a free-market health care industry is both the most effective, and the most compassionate system. As every example of free market economics demonstrates, an increase in the demand for a service will always be met with an increase in supply. High demand for hospital beds? No problem - a new hospital will undoubtedly be built, because there is money to be made. High demand for dental care? No problem - more people will go to dental school, because they see an opportunity for a stable, well-paid career. Health services in a free market system will never be rationed, because someone always steps in to profit from demand. And, before you start to cry about people making money off of medical care, take a moment to recognize that the competition present in a free market also guarantees that health service providers will always be looking for the best ways to provide efficient, high-quality, cost-effective solutions for individuals' health care needs, because that is how you stay in business in a free market. That's how it works in every other industry; there's absolutely no reason to believe that health care would be any different.

Why Should Abortion be Rare?

From Ace of Spades, a visual depiction of the inspiration for my blog's name:

My general opinion with respect to bumper stickers (particularly of the political variety) is that they are 3"x9" depictions of self-righteous ignorance. I also have a theory that the coherence of a person's worldview is inversely proportional to the number of said stickers. Usually, my reaction to a vehicle like the above example is to roll my eyes and then move on, without a second thought. However, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss one particular sticker, because I think that it highlights a very big problem frequently present in the abortion debate. Along the bottom bumper, we see the following:

Now, the way that I see it, the abortion debate boils down to one central question: when an abortion is performed, what is happening? There can only be two answers: one, we are taking the life of a human being, or two, we are not. Once we boil this question down to its simplest elements, the morality of abortion becomes pretty straightforward: if we are taking the life of a human being, then justifying abortion becomes impossible. If we are not taking the life of a human being, then no justification is necessary.

This brings me to my titular question: given that the individual clearly believes that abortion should be legal, why should it also be rare? This clause seems to acknowledge that there is some kind of moral difficulty with abortion, because the owner of the sticker is communicating that it should be discouraged, or at the very least infrequently utilized. However, given that the only possible moral difficulty with abortion is that it represents a very real act of murder, how can we argue that it should be legal?

There are two intellectually consistent positions on the abortion debate: to hold the position that the unborn is not a human being, and therefore has no right to protection, or hold that the unborn is a human being and is therefore entitled to the same protections afforded to other human beings. To create some kind of grey area where we acknowledge the fetus as a human that somehow lacks personhood, but which nevertheless poses a minor moral dilemma (of the sort that would drive us to make abortion legal but also rare) is to be not only intellectually inconsistent, but intellectually cowardly. If you believe that abortion should be legal, then have the courage of your convictions. Proudly display a bumper sticker that states "Keep abortion safe, legal, and as frequently utilized as desired."

Is Article V Our Best Hope?

I've been hearing a lot of cheerleading by my Republican friends regarding the imminent demise of President Obama. There is no question that he has been an unmitigated disaster as president, and has grievously and repeatedly violated his oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States, and I am heartened by what I see as a general dissatisfaction among the population at large with his job performance. I'd even say at this point in the game that his chances at reelection are significantly less than 50/50. I've also been mildly encouraged by Mitt Romney's repeated mention of the Tenth Amendment, which most politicians seem to have forgotten. So, um, huzzah, I guess?

Here's the reason for my lack of enthusiasm: as I've mentioned before, while I really can't stand President Obama for any number of reasons, I see him as a symptom, rather than the disease. The real disease is centralized government, which grows like a cancer and exists, it seems, only to further its own goals of money and power. Now, while I believe that Mitt Romney will be infinitely better at managing the federal Leviathan than Barack Obama, I don't really want a cancer that operates more efficiently, I want it removed. Mitt Romney will not do this. The GOP will not do this. In today's Washington, D.C. even Ron Paul couldn't do this, though, God bless him, I believe he would do his damndest. The truth is, the problem is  the federal government, and as a result, we cannot look to the federal government for a solution. The system is too polluted for us to believe that any number of presidential elections will do any good. The bureaucracy is too entrenched, and the legislature too corrupted by its ill-gotten power to really believe that any significant reduction in government's size and scope is to be willingly forthcoming.

There is, however, another way, and it's found in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. According to Article V, the states themselves have the power to amend the Constitution. In order for this to occur, 2/3 of the states must call for an amendment convention, and 3/4 of states must ratify any resultant amendments. As it turns out, we have the ability to cripple the Leviathan without its consent. Now, while the prospect of convincing 38 separate legislatures to act may seem far more daunting than electing proper small-government majorities in Washington, it really isn't. The average state resident has far more access to his state legislature than he does the House of Representatives or Senate, and what we need is to convince those state legislatures to assume more power, not less, as would be the case at the federal level.

Therefore, I propose a strategy: let's work to get Obama out of office in order to keep the nation from completely collapsing, but let's not stop there. Instead, let's use the next four years attempting to convince our individual state legislatures to force Washington to give back some of the power that they have stolen from the states over the last 150 years. It's time to not only manage the Leviathan, but to deal it a crippling blow.

Scope Creep and the Police State

New York is like a joke without a very funny punchline. Courtesy the NYC city council and nanny mayor Mike Bloomberg, it may soon become very difficult for women to catch a cab in New York:

They’re not hookers — they just look as if they could be!

A dozen scantily clad women rallied outside City Hall yesterday, decrying a bill they say prevents beauties wearing skimpy clothes from getting a fair shot at hailing a yellow cab.
The proposal, which will soon get Mayor Bloomberg’s signature, slaps stiff penalties on cabbies who ferry prostitutes and get a cut of the cash.

But yesterday’s collection of bartenders and shot girls said that hacks will now be scared to pick up any woman wearing a short skirt or spiked heels — and noted that sometimes, even legitimately employed women have to flaunt it to make a living.

In short, the law would result in the revocation of the license of any cab driver caught transporting a prostitute more than once. In addition to the license revocation, the driver would be hit with a $10,000 fine, since apparently we need to not only kill a man's career, but make sure his savings are crippled as well. To be clear, we aren't talking about letting a hooker have sex in the cab; we're just talking about taking her from point A to point B, and the driver doesn't even have to be aware that his fare is "working" in order to lose his livelihood.

The stated purpose, of course, is to make business harder for prostitutes. I guess the assumption is that if they can't get a ride from the point of sale to the "point of entry" so to speak, they will be discouraged from hooking, give it up, and become the paralegal that they always really wanted to be. And hey, if a man loses his means of feeding his family in the process, well you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?

This law is part of a disturbing trend where some activity is made illegal, and then more and more activities associated with the original activity (whether directly related or not) face increasing regulation in order to discourage the original activity. Often, the motivations behind this creeping authoritarianism are questionable (such as when local law enforcement agencies rake in a fortune seizing assets with an extremely tenuous connection to drug trafficking), and they are always detrimental to the idea of individual liberty. These kinds of "scope creep" are no surprise, given government's demonstrated tendency to grab power using every available method, no matter how overbearing. It makes me wonder what is next - will we start shutting down hotels if prostitutes are found inside, regardless of the innkeeper's knowledge of said activity? Will the government seize banks where prostitutes hold checking accounts? There is a serious problem with allowing government to outlaw Z, then outlaw Y because it leads to Z, then outlaw X because it leads to Y; eventually you get to A and you have allowed government to dictate your entire life. I'm not joking; at this point, nothing government does would surprise me.

I think that I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I don't believe that prostitution should be illegal. I have a hard time seeing how we can allow people to legally be paid for sex (as occurs in the pornography industry), or allow people to have casual sex with strangers (as occurs on drunken Friday nights all across the country), but outlaw prostitution. Frankly, I find such a situation intellectually inconsistent. The response to this from many of my fellow Christians is to concede that perhaps pornography should be made illegal. However, while I am sympathetic to this position from a moral standpoint, my concern is that it leads to the "scope creep" that I am talking about. Sure, we might be OK with it when it comes to sex, because these particular sexual behaviors are morally repugnant to us, but what then is to stop government from using the same rationale to limit speech? Or gun rights? Or any of the other freedoms that we hold dear? From a logical standpoint, the answer is nothing. Therefore, as in all situations that involve the power of the state, unless the behavior threatens life, liberty, or property, we should err on the side of liberty.

The Wright Brothers Did it Alone

On December 14, 1903, bicycle builders turned inventors Orville and Wilbur Wright recorded the first successful powered aircraft flight at Kill Devil Hills, which at the time was a mostly uninhabited, desolate section of the mostly uninhabited, desolate North Carolina Outer Banks. The brothers, one of whom was a high-school dropout, had started a bicycle repair shop the previous decade, and used the proceeds in order to fund their vision of a manned, powered heavier-than-air flying machine. They had studied what was known about aeronautics and had built several successful gliders, along with a few less-successful powered craft prior to the successful flight. The Wright Brothers did not receive a dime of government funding for development of this history-changing technology.

On June 14, 2012, one hundred eight years and six months later to the day, United States President Barack Obama gave a speech in which he made the claim that it is necessary for the United States government to pump money into research and development so that this century's version of the Wright brothers might have a chance to succeed. During the speech, he made the comment that "the private sector can’t do it alone, especially when it comes to basic research." Apparently the President doesn't realize that the private sector did "do it alone," and those who did it alone are precisely those he invokes to justify the need for government subsidy. I'm not really sure if he is really that ignorant, or if he just assumes everyone else is.

In truth, the Wright brothers are a perfect example of the private sector changing the world without help from government, and it should serve as an example that individuals can change the world in dramatic ways without some kind of payout from Washington. While it may be true, as Obama points out, that many of the technological breakthroughs of the last century came about because of government spending, what he is missing is the fact that such spending isn't necessary in order to create revolutionary technology. The very brothers he uses as a political prop are proof of this fact.

Furthermore, while government spending may have caused some technologies to come into existence, we have no idea what technologies don't exist today because of that spending. See, every dime the government spends is a dime that it steals from the private sector, so all of those tax dollars that went into developing GPS are tax dollars that, had they remained in the private sector, could have gone into developing something else that could have revolutionized the world in a different way. And, with the money staying in the private sector, we have the added benefit of the free market, rather than bureaucracy, determining where that money is spent. Since the free market is always the most efficient mover of capital, it's highly likely that reduced government "investment" would have resulted in even more revolutionary discoveries and developments over the last century. I'd actually like to argue that the culture we have developed, where everyone now looks to government for leadership on what should be done next, and how it should be done, does nothing but stifle innovation and revolutionary thinking.

Obama, like most big-government types, believes that government needs to direct where private industry invests. In this speech, he refers both to green energy subsidies and allowing government to choose where R&D money is spent. He honestly believes that without government turning the gears, nothing of value will come into being. Such a viewpoint is conceited as well as wrong. The Wright brothers are proof positive that not only can the private sector create without government help, but they can create things that change the world.

Paperback Now Available on Amazon

The paperback edition of my book is now available on Amazon.

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Is Indiana's New Use of Force Law Justified?

Indiana has become the first state to explicitly remove protections for public servants, including police officers, who enter a person's home illegally:

Police officers in Indiana are upset over a new law allowing residents to use deadly force against public servants, including law enforcement officers, who unlawfully enter their homes. It was signed by Republican Governor Mitch Daniels in March.
The first of its kind in the United States, the law was adopted after the state Supreme Court went too far in one of its rulings last year, according to supporters. The case in question involved a man who assaulted an officer during a domestic violence call. The court ruled that there was “no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”

The legislation, which is a modification to Indiana's use of force statute (Indiana Code 35-41-3-2), states in part that:

A person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to:
(1) protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force;
(2) prevent or terminate the public servant's unlawful entry of or attack on the person's dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle; or
(3) prevent or terminate the public servant's unlawful trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person's possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person's immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect.

While the law has already drawn fire from law enforcement groups, and will undoubtedly be mocked by many, it is exactly the right thing to do, for two reasons. First, while there are certain powers given to law enforcement officers that are not enjoyed by the public at large, those powers should never apply if and when a law enforcement officer acts unlawfully. If a police officer is violating his oath to "protect and serve" and in so doing opens himself up to what would otherwise be a justified use of deadly force, why should his (or her) status as a law enforcement officer make the situation any different? Second, one of the primary characteristics of liberty is the respect of private property rights. After all, if a free man is not safe in his own home, is he really free? Therefore, if an individual unlawfully infringes on that right, then the use of deadly force is always justified, and if the perpetrator is an agent of the state, such an infringement is particularly odious, and should be treated as such.

Law enforcement officers have a legitimate profession when and only when they enforce the legitimate actions of government. To the extent that they go beyond what are already overbearing government intrusions into personal liberty, they should be treated as enemies, not afforded additional protection.

Book Update

My new book, From Liberty to Tyranny: How Expansion, Warfare, Economic Crisis, and Entitlements Threaten Personal Liberty in the United States, is now available in paperback, in addition to the Kindle version. Currently, it's only available through CreateSpace; it will be up at Amazon this time next week.

For paperback, go here

The Kindle version is available here

Apparently, Government can Amend the Laws of Physics

In my post about same-sex marriage, I joked about the absurdity of government causing the moon to begin hydrogen fusion by turning it into a star via legislation. I should have known that our government is beyond parody, and really believe that they can modify natural law. Via Protein Wisdom, a story about how the EPA is ignoring thermodynamics in order to give electric vehicles better efficiency ratings:

"The EPA allows plug in vehicle makers to claim an equivalent miles per gallon (MPG) based on the electricity powering the cars motors being 100% efficient. This implies the electric power is generated at the power station with 100% efficiency, is transmitted and distributed through thousands of miles of lines without any loss, is converted from AC to DC without any loss, and the charge discharge efficiency of the batteries on the vehicle is also 100%. Of course the second law of thermodynamics tells us all of these claims are poppycock and that losses of real energy will occur in each step of the supply chain of getting power to the wheels of a vehicle powered with an electric motor."

I think everyone understands that nothing is 100% efficient. Any time that potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, some of the potential energy is lost as heat. For example, as a battery powers an electric motor, the wires will heat slightly due to resistance in the wire, and the moving parts of the motor will heat up due to friction. Energy equations must always equal zero, since energy can neither be created or destroyed, so the actual equation, put very simply, is this:

 Potential Energy = Usable Kinetic Energy + Heat Loss Energy

This heat loss energy is referred to by physicists as entropy, and according to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy produced by a transfer of energy is always positive, meaning that there is no such thing as a 100% efficient transfer of energy. Every time mechanical or chemical energy is used to produce electrical energy, some of the energy is lost as heat. Every time electrical energy is transmitted, some of the energy is lost as heat. Every time electrical energy is converted to chemical energy (for example, when it is stored in a battery), some of the energy is lost as heat. According to the EPA, however, none of this happens, and the production, transport, and storage of electricity is 100% efficient from the power plant to the batteries in your electric car. As the author of the article points out, by the time all of the conversions are accounted for, this process is actually about 34.4% efficient, and this is before the batteries are discharged in order to convert the stored energy into the mechanical energy that powers the car. In truth, by the time all is said and done, while the EPA claims a 118mpg equivalent for the all-electric Honda Fit, the actual value is in the 40mpg range, which is not significantly different from the gasoline version's 35mpg.

Leftists love to malign conservatives and conservative-leaning libertarians as anti-science, but this is yet one more example that the left will twist statistics, science, and the laws of nature itself in order to generate the proper narrative.

New Book Available

My first book, From Liberty to Tyranny: How Expansion, Warfare, Economic Crisis, and Entitlements Threaten Personal Liberty in the United States is now available for Kindle. If you have enjoyed my essays on liberty, writing them was part of the development process for this book, and they form some of the central themes. In a nutshell, I took a look at American history and highlighted the path that we have taken from a republic founded in the ideals of liberty and have transformed into an authoritarian, militaristic, quasi-socialist state. If you are interested in U.S. history and/or the cause of individual liberty, I hope you'll give it a read.

Is the Private Sector "Doing Fine?"

During a speech this week, President Obama made the statement that "The private sector is doing fine," and that the primary weakness in the United States economy "[has] to do with state and local government," which needs more support (read: taxpayer money) from Washington. Republicans immediately seized on the comment as proof that Obama is completely out of touch on the economy, and the president was forced to retract the remarks, acknowledging that the economy "is not doing fine." In its reporting on the statement, the Wall Street Journal referred to this retraction as a "clarification," although the word "clarify" means "I was right, I just communicated poorly," while this is clearly a case of "What I said doesn't even partially correspond to reality." Obama also took time to point out that there has been a rebound in private-sector job growth, which makes his statement at least partly true.

While Obama may insist on repeating the lie that there has been a rebound in job growth, such is demonstrably not the case. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the private sector added 69,000 jobs in May, and the March number was revised from 154,000 to 143,000, while the April number was revised from 115,000 to 77,000. The three month trend shows that not only are not enough jobs being created, but there are fewer being created each month, indicating further economic slowdown. As I've written before, approximately 240,000 new Americans enter the job force each month, meaning that 240,000 new jobs are needed just to keep up with population growth, and this would only be considered good if the unemployment rate was around 5% (considered full employment); the fact that the rate is 8.2% (or 11% if you count those who have given up looking for work), means that significantly more than 240,000 jobs per month are needed in order to actually improve the United States economic outlook. Statistically speaking, the month of May left an additional 170,000 working-age Americans out of work. Understanding this situation requires only the most rudimentary of mathematical skills; skills which the President undoubtedly possesses, making him not so much ignorant of the situation as a blatant liar.

There is another aspect of Obama's statement which is troubling as well. While many people have rightly focused on the "the private sector is doing fine" comment, the comment regarding the need to add more state and local government employees is just as troubling. In this statement, Obama demonstrates where his real priorities are: like all leftists, Obama wants to see government grow, because he believes that government is the solution, not the problem. In the universe that Obama inhabits, more bureaucrats, more regulations, and a centrally-planned economy are all good things. Ultimately, it's the second part of the statement, the one about growing government, that is the root of the United States' economic problems, and therefore the source of his need to repeat the lie which made up the first part of his statement.

Secession: The New Black

Via Protein Wisdom, a new poll out this week indicates that the percentage of the population that believes states have a right to secede is on the rise:

"Nearly one-quarter of Americans believe that states have the right to secede, according to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports -- up 10 percentage points in two years.
The latest poll is just one of many that shows that Americans have “serious and growing concern about the federal government,” according to Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports."

As Jeff Goldstein puts it:

"Up 10% in two years — and yet still 76% too low, if you ask me.

But then, I’m one of them fringe types who doesn’t like to feel trapped in perpetuity by a central government that can control me simply by conning and/or bribing 50.1% of the population (or getting just enough electoral votes, whichever obtains)."

I agree with Jeff that 24% is 76% too low, but I must say I am much more encouraged by these results, along with the 51% who believe that government is a threat to liberty, than I am by the prospect of having Mitt Romney in charge of the federal Leviathan come next January.

From a historical perspective, as a compact between 13 sovereign states for common commerce, defense, and foreign affairs, the United States by design should be the kind of organization that a state, regardless of reason, has a right to cut ties with. Up until Lincoln's war of aggression, such a right was commonly understood. And, no, just because the North won the war, that does not settle the philosophical question. Such questions can't be answered with gunfire.

And from the perspective of one who is absolutely petrified by the debt, regulation, and sheer gall of the federal beast, the fact that said government is now seen as a threat by the majority of Americans is welcome news. To all of you who are finally starting to see the world the way it actually is, I'd like to say "Welcome to the party. The beer's in the corner. Now that we're all here, what the hell comes next?"

Why is Obesity a Public Policy Issue?

There has been a lot of press over the last couple of days regarding a proposal by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to limit sugar-added beverages to 16oz in restaurants and arenas. The move is being touted as a method to combat obesity, with the assumption being that, given smaller serving sizes, people will naturally consume less. There is some evidence to back such a claim, with an editorial in today's New York Post highlighting some research into portion sizes:

"As Sarah Kliff notes in The Washington Post, in one noted experiment moviegoers were given their choice of medium or large buckets of stale, week-old popcorn.
Despite the bad taste, those with the large buckets ate 33.6 percent more popcorn — that is, increasing total calorie consumption by a third."

At the end of the editorial, the writer of the Post story states that while some will reject Bloomberg's proposal as being just another nanny-state intrusion into people's lives, it may well be an idea that's time has come:

"Fact is, the proposal would not bar free refills or even multiple purchases — it’s meant to discourage, not to ban.
And, to be honest, localities around the nation have ended up adopting many of Bloomberg’s health-related initiatives.
We’ve never been fans of coercive government measures. But this one seems less onerous than most.
It’s certainly worth a try."

Here is my question: Why? Why is it worth a try? But perhaps I should back up just a bit, in order to properly frame the issues surrounding the story. What is at heart here is a piece of demographic data, namely the fact that there are a large proportion of individuals in this country who are obese. This is a statistical fact, and not something that is up for debate. The majority of Americans are overweight, and there is a disturbingly large percentage who are just plain fatasses. Americans eat too much, and what they eat is over-processed and largely unhealthy. Couple this with the overall laziness of the American public at large, and obesity isn't just a problem, it's an inevitability.

Now that the premise has been granted (Americans are fat), it's time to take a look at the conclusion. Mayor Bloomberg, along with the writer of the NYP editorial, have drawn the conclusion that since Americans are fat, then something must be done about it. Now, back to my question: Why?

In truth, there are a few reasons why officials believe that government must solve the obesity problem. In many cases, these officials are busybodies who, through some genetic defect, were born without the "it's none of my business" gene, and are never happier than when they are solving someone else's problems. In other cases, officials want to be seen as doing something, because it makes them believe that they are being an effective official. After all, no one gets famous by acting like Calvin Coolidge; in order to build a legacy, you must be an FDR. Never mind that Coolidge was a far better president; it's FDR who gets the most pages in the history books.

However, if you press someone who acts this way for a legitimate reason why, it almost always comes down to public health. People who are obese tend to be sicker, less productive, and incur more health care costs than their thinner counterparts. Therefore, it is in society's best interests if we (and by "we" I mean "government") take active steps to combat the obesity epidemic. And in truth, given our current system, this makes sense. In an America in which no one is held personally responsible for their lifestyles, employers, public venues, and commercial businesses are required to treat fatassery as a disability, and everyone is on the hook for our collective health-care costs, then yes, we must come together and compel certain behaviors because your obesity is my problem. But where some see this as an inevitability, the sane among us reject the premise. It's not the obesity that needs to go away, it's the belief that your poor health choices need to hit my wallet.

I believe that we should let fat people be fat, stupid people be stupid, and lazy people be lazy. And in a world where each individual has to live with the consequences of his or her own actions, while all of these things are unfortunate, none of them needs to be a public policy issue.