Monthly Archives: November 2010

Yeah, it’s solid. Check out her heritage HERE.

laconf2010, Kenli Schoolland, A View from the Next Generation from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

by Alex Fidel

Reason reports that Michigan recently banned Four Lokos:

Yesterday the Michigan Liquor Control Commission banned caffeinated alcoholic beverages such as Four Loko, Joose, and Smirnoff Raw Tea. The ban gives retailers a month to get rid of 55 products the commission calls “alcohol energy drinks.” The complete list is here (PDF). The State News reports that “the commission decided to ban the [products] because of multiple recent news reports about the dangers and consequences of the drinks.” Behold the power of yellow (or, in this case, maybe lime green) journalism! In addition to the over-the-top ABC piece I noted last week (which implied that healthy young men are dropping dead from heart attacks after their first can of Four Loko), the prohibitionist advocacy disguised as news reporting has included a front-page New York Times story headlined “Caffeine and Alcohol Drink Is Potent Mix for Young.” … “Michigan’s liquor regulators explain that they have the authority to arbitrarily prohibit these products because … They say products like Four Loko (which are classified as beer because their alcohol comes from fermented malt) are intolerable because “the packaging is often misleading” and “the products themselves can pose problems by directly appealing to a younger customer [and] encouraging excessive consumption, while mixing alcohol with various other chemical and herbal stimulants.” They cite no real evidence to support these conclusions, and I’m not sure we should take the word of liquor regulators who think alcohol is a stimulant.

So, Michigan has a Liquor Control Commission (sounds like something out of 1984). Now I could have sworn my dad emigrated from the Soviet Union to escape Orwellian society, but I digress. They have effectively banned all caffeinated alcohol drinks like Four Loko, Joose, etc. I recently ranted about saving Four Lokos from bans here.

Come on you guys, you know California is next. San Francisco just banned Happy Meals. What’s going to stop them from banning Happiness in a Can? Let’s stand behind Four Lokos, even if you think they are nasty.

From Gary Johnson. Repeal Obamacare, repeal Bush’s prescription health care benefit. He’d do it too.

Blogger here singing Gary Johnson’s praises whilst [that's for you, British readers] sealing the coffin on his not yet announced 2012 candidacy. For instance: “[Gary Johnson] has a record, he has convictions, he has a refreshing openess and a willingness to tell it as he sees it. Obviously he doesn’t stand a chance.”

Fuck that, he’s got a chance. If in two years the Tea Party in its various incarnations can take down multiple RINOs, prominent Democrats, sweep more than half of state legislatures, take the House from Democrats, etc., then in two years the portion of the right which has yet to apply its purported philosophy to its partisan beliefs may have re-read Free To Choose enough times that they’ll get on board with Gary Johnson and his common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government.

Gary Johnson, FTW. Because the man’s compass points directly towards freedom, which is where I’m going.

by Alex Fidel

My congressman, Brian Bilbray, has been sending me mailers throughout the election ever since I re-registered Republican so I can vote in the presidential primaries. He talks about reigning in reckless borrowing and spending. Uh-huh, sure. On his Facebook page, we have 4 likes in common! Wow! The US Constitution, Fox News, Fox Business, and Glenn Beck. It’s like he understands me! He’s a true fiscal conservative and we need to keep him in Congress… right?

Well not so much. I’m guessing that he liked Glenn Beck and the Constitution on Facebook just to pander to this strange, new-fangled Tea Party thing, but I’m guessing he doesn’t know that Glenn Beck espouses for defense spending cuts (and if you watch YouTube videos, people will splice videos out of context and with no chronological progression that it makes Beck seem like he flip-flops on the issue, which is not so. We both started progressing out of neoconservatism at about the same time, around late 2008, so I don’t consider him a ‘fake’ libertarian. It’s Sarah Palin that’s the real phony here), and I’m also guessing he doesn’t know that the Congress has to declare a war, not give the president a blank check for power. And that Fox News has been hiring more libertarians lately, like Stossel and the Judge.

So what else might show the contrary to his ‘fiscal conservatism’? Well, welcome to the first installment of BilbrayWatch!

Let me take you to his Facebook page, where he supports subsidies for scientific research. He uses the ‘general welfare’ quote from the Constitution to make an exception to his ‘fiscal conservatism’ (the videos are there on his wall… go look!). Sounds like bringing home the bacon to me. If he really cared about biomedical research, he would end all subsidies, and limit the power of the FDA (such as making it a voluntary program). Subsidies take money from the private sector and shift it to government cronies and scam artists (like T. Boone Pickins… who got called a scam artist on Stossel), who lobby for the bacon. It artificially picks winners and losers in the marketplace, instead of letting the marketplace pick the winners and losers. It also creates moral hazard. The subsidies really don’t depend on success of research, they just keep getting more government cheese, so they have no incentive to create safe and effective treatment in a timely manner and at a low cost. They can just milk their time and not care about safety or efficacy, because if the product fails and their profits go belly-up, there’s still the bacon to fall back on.

So Brian Bilbray is not a fiscal conservative, and is also not a free-marketeer.

I am also calling on you, DuelingBarstools readers, to help me find a Republican opponent to Bilbray in 2012. Someone like Gary Johnson or John Dennis: knows their philosophies inside an out (as opposed to a zombie… and there are plenty of those in every viewpoint, even libertarians), is 100% honest and that shows in their character and how they present themselves, and actually puts forth effort into their campaigns (especially with the whole Prop 14 deal). Now I am never ashamed to vote for the Libertarian ticket, but it seems like half of these guys don’t even try to campaign, even with lack of financial resources, and frankly, when they speak, they don’t address the issues fluently, namely, they sound like zombies a lot of the time who have never challenged their ways of thought. I used to be a huge neoconservative, and I had to challenge myself every which way as libertarianism resonated so much more with me. In that sense, I can thoroughly explain to a Tea Party crowd who are still soul-searching as to why we need to cut defense spending, legalize drugs, and repeal marriage licenses, and I would go at it from their perspective. Unfortunately, there is no Republican Liberty Caucus to tap, and I don’t want to try and sift through the San Diego Tea Party, because, like I said, they’re still soul-searching. It was easy for me because I’m naturally a rational skeptic, and I’m young. It’s a much longer process for people who have been used to the social conservative dogma for so long, that they don’t really realize that a balanced budget won’t be a reality until we abolish Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare, abolish the Dept. of Education, abolish the Dept. of Homeland Security, abolish the Dept. of Energy, cut defense spending, decriminalize all drug use at the federal level, stop the pork, stop the bailouts, and reject Keynesianism. But I am hopeful, I see Ron Paul books on the same list as Glenn Beck books on Tea Party groups’ reading lists on Amazon (Glenn’s new book, Broke, has an entire chapter on defense cuts). Hopefully they get around in time for Gary Johnson’s presidential primary. And they need to stop picking crazy social conservatives like O’Donnell, Paladino, etc. Other Tea Parties picked Rand Paul and Peter Schiff. Anyways, aside from convincing someone to oppose Bilbray as a Republican and maybe giving policy advice, I’m not gonna be a huge activist for this, because frankly, I want to focus on my music and also save my political energy for Gary Johnson and another Prop 19 in 2012.

Maybe they should also watch this video from time to time:

Interesting article about Gary Johnson in TNR. Excerpt below:

Johnson seems to relish flouting the watch-your-step etiquette most politicians practice religiously. Richardson, for example, spoke politely—even graciously—of his predecessor. “Nobody should underestimate Gary Johnson,” he told me. When Johnson talks about Richardson, by contrast, he doesn’t hide his disdain: He hones in on the ethics allegations that have plagued the current governor and reels off a lengthy list of his other qualms. After Richardson became governor, Johnson recounts, “he was teaching a course at the university, and he invited me as the guest. So I came, and somebody said, ‘What’s the biggest difference between you and Richardson?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think the difference is that I put issues first and politics last. Richardson puts politics first and issues last.’ And, actually, that was the truth. Couldn’t have been more accurate. And he was sitting there, and I don’t think he really liked it.” …

As we drive off, Johnson breathes a sigh of relief, floating theories about the merciful cop. But the close call sends him into a lighthearted rant on the absurdity of federally mandated speed limits. “Look,” he says, “there are times and places where it would be perfectly safe to go one-forty, and there are others where it would be reckless to go fifty-five.” Within moments, he’s taking aim at stop signs and red lights. “I’m not opposed to the concept,” he allows. “But sometimes, you know, it’s 5:30 in the morning! There’s nobody on the road!” Johnson laughs, turns in his seat, and fixes me with a grin. “That’s the first sign you know you’re a libertarian,” he says. “You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there’s not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the gas.”

Gary Johnson is the man. Fact.

Via Gary Johnson’s Facebook:

After yesterday’s election I think it would be wrong for the Republicans to take the results as some sort of mandate for Republican leadership. I believe that the Republicans have an opportunity to redeem themselves for when we owned the White House and when we ran up record deficits and when we gave America a prescription health care benefit that added trillions to the entitlement liability and ran up record deficits.

We have a chance to earn back Americans trust. That way maybe the next election cycle we will have the chance to win back the Senate and the Presidency and then at that point right the fiscal ship of America! We would have a country that is not going to implode into itself and that would be brought back to the principles it was built on; liberty and freedom and the personal responsibility that goes along with that. 

From Judge Napolitano’s Facebook page:

Congratulations to the Drug Cartels and Moral Crusaders who’ve won a great victory in California! The Criminal Justice system can continue to tax citizens to incarcerate them for engaging in a harmless private activity thanks to the loss of Prop. 19.

That sums up my feelings on the matter, although I would have used the word “congratufuckinglations” not “congratulations.”

by Alex Fidel

http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/02/gary-johnson-for-president-in-2012-listen-for-an-announcement-in-february/

Get excited people, let’s make this happen! Not only is Gary principled, but he is also honest and has great character. You can read my previous article about Gary Johnson’s Seven Principles of Good Government to find out more about Gary Johnson, the person.

by Alex Fidel

I think the PMRC and music censorship brought the U.S. to the edge of Communism in the non-economic/social realm, and it was lead by right-wingers. Glenn Beck often points out that progressivism (a.k.a. big government-ism) is prevalent in both the left and the right; progressive/big government left and right. None can be more true of the so-called ‘right’ of the 1980’s.
As a musician and a big Zappa fan, you can see where my disgust comes from. My dad got into bad terms with the KGB when he lived in the Soviet Union for having albums of non-approved artists. Doesn’t sound too far fetched from what the PMRC was trying to accomplish, huh?

Not to mention that the board was made up of the unelected wives of Senators, including both Al and Tipper Gore.

Steve Sailer asked his readers to offer insights into the coming election. Here’s a doozy:

I believe the material outcome of the Republican landslide will render it irrelevant. This is a conclusion based on examining the reasons Rep. John Boehner gave for voting for Republicans tomorrow.

Here’s the commenter’s link:

In which it is proved by the Republican House Majority Leader-to-be, Rep. John Boehner:

Why You Should Vote For Republicans

Americans are speaking out and demanding a new way forward in Washington. Republicans have listened and outlined a new governing agenda in the form of a Pledge to America focused on creating jobs, cutting spending and changing the way Washington does business.

A smaller government

At the core of the Pledge is an idea Washington just hasn’t tried before — that the path to recovery lies in making government smaller instead of making it bigger. To jump-start job creation, the economic uncertainty gripping small businesses has to be eliminated, and the spending binge in Washington has to be stopped.

The Pledge puts forth a clear plan to end the current uncertainty, starting with stopping all looming tax hikes so that small businesses can get back to creating jobs. This is followed by a blueprint for fiscal sanity that begins with cutting spending to pre-”stimulus,” pre-bailout levels, a move that will save taxpayers $100 billion in the first year alone.

Very well. Smaller government sounds good. Saving $100 billion in the first year alone sounds like a lot. Now, what was the federal budget in 2010? According to “A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise” which is the Orwellian title for The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2010, the 2010 budget is $3.552 trillion. And according to the most recent estimate in July, the deficit alone is going to be $1.47 trillion instead of the $1.171 trillion originally forecast.

So, Republicans are going to cut 2.8% of the federal budget, or if you prefer, 6.8% of the federal budget deficit. In other words, if the nation were a car speeding towards a canyon at 70 miles per hour, the Republicans master plan for saving the passengers would be to slow the car down to 65.2 MPH! And let’s see if what Boehner’s plans are for addressing the four pressing issues I mentioned in today’s column:

1) The economy. He mentioned it. But repealing “the job-killing health care law and” replacing “it with common-sense reforms focused on lowering costs and protecting American jobs” is isn’t even going to begin solving the debt-deflation problem of $52 trillion in public and private debt.

2) The massive mortgage fraud. Nothing. I suspect the Republicans will come out on the side of the banks and sacrifice the rule of law for nothing. But who knows? Boehner didn’t mention it.

3) Immigration. Nothing, although there is just a hint of anti-Ricardian rhetoric detectable in the phrase “protecting American jobs”. Again, Republicans are more likely to be part of the problem than the solution here; Ronald Reagan was signed Ted Kennedy’s 1986 law.

4) The endless wars. Nothing. And they’re for it.

In conclusion, I see no reason not to vote Republican if it amuses you. They’re certainly not going to make things any worse than the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats. So vote how thou wilt, because it will make no substantive difference in the material outcome of the nation’s fate.