Cato@Liberty shows you the difference between free-market, laissez- faire capitalism and corporatism:

The seemingly arcane difference between laissez-faire and corporatism is one of the most important in today’s public policy debates. Laissez-faire means the equality of all before the law, with the state neither helping nor hindering any market actor. Corporatism means offering special favors to those who’ve already succeeded. (Just for starters: “Too big to fail” is corporatism.)

If only this distinction were more clearly understood by lawmakers, journalists, and the general public. Too often all of these groups just use the vague word “capitalism,” which seems mostly intended to split the difference — or to obscure it. But laissez-faire and corporatism are directly opposed to one another, and if more people on the left understood this, they might be far more sympathetic to free markets. Even, perhaps, while keeping a healthy mistrust of corporations.

The financial crisis that we're dealing with was caused by the government and their stooges.
This is why we are where we are today.


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* video embed updated 10/02/2008

*In no way, shape, or form does the Professor Politico Show endorse any of the presidential candidates (only because we haven't found one to endorse yet) or their views.

Here's an excellent argument for NASA to get out of the way.

From Jacob Sullum @ Reason's Hit & Run blog:

Yesterday the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state's smoking ban applies to private clubs as well as businesses open to the general public. Washington's Clean Indoor Air Act, passed in 1985, exempts "private facilities which are occasionally open to the public except upon the occasions when [they are] open to the public." An initiative approved by voters in 2005 broadened the ban to cover "places of employment." American Legion Post 149 in Bremerton challenged the Kitsap County Board of Health's attempt to stop its members from smoking at the post home, where all seven employees are relatives of members and all but one smoke, arguing that the exemption for private facilities remained in force. A five-judge majority of the state Supreme Court disagreed. Four judges dissented, with one of them, Richard Sanders, concluding

that if the majority's interpretation of the law is correct, the law is unconstitutional:

I would hold the Act does not apply to the Post Home as a private facility. Alternatively, if the Post Home's status as a private facility does not limit the Act's application, I would hold the Act is void for vagueness; unduly interferes with the Post Home's right of intimate association; violates the Post Home's substantive due process rights absent actual proof of a real and substantial relation between secondhand smoke and workplace dangers; and violates equal protection by distinguishing between two classes of business without reasonable grounds.

Just more government control to keep the sheep in line.
Read more here.

(Thanks to Cato-at-Liberty)
For more visit the above link.

From ABCNews.com:

People are (or will be) having sex all around America today. But that's nobody's business. Sex is a private matter, right? Except that local authorities sometimes say it is their business.

Read the rest of this excellent article by John Stossel and Patrick McMenamin here.

Here's a round-up of today's most interesting stories.


From Liberty Lover:
Jerry Taylor on SOLVING PUMP PAIN
and
HYPER-ACTIVE GOVERNMENT


From Reason's Out of Control blog:
Hey, You, Get Offa My Cloud!


From The Line is Here:
Private enterprise Rocks
and
Excellence in Education


From Reason's Hit and Run blog:
I Got a Letter From the Government the Other Day

*Quick note, posts will be arriving less erratically in the coming days.

Angry Renter is a grass roots campaign created by Freedom Works to oppose the corporate welfare that's being handed out to bail out mortgage companies that made bad or stupid decisions.


From the Angry Renter website:

You know a web site is making a difference when the Wall Street Journal publishes a hit piece on the front page!

We don't find it particularly shocking that a grassroots group working for limited government would launch a grassroots petition opposing a government housing bailout...but hey, we're not in the newspaper business.

We're not sure how a reporter can call this effort "fake" or "astro-turf" when we've put our name on every page and when over 48,000 real people have voluntarily visited and signed the petition.

FreedomWorks was founded back in 1984 and we're headquartered in Washington, D.C. We're based in D.C. because we fight for taxpayers and Washington, D.C. is where they pass the laws and spend trillions of your tax dollars every year. We are a non-profit organization chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey with over 20 staffers across the country. Like every non-profit organization, from Sierra Club to the AARP, we respect the privacy of our donors and do not disclose them.

More here.

And From the Wall Street Journal:

AngryRenter.com looks a bit like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners.

"It seems like America's renters may NEVER be able to afford a home," AngryRenter.com laments. The Web site urges like-minded tenants to let Congress feel their fury by signing an online petition. "We are millions of renters standing up for our rights!"

Angry they may be, but the people behind AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes, a fellow Republican. It's a fake grass-roots effort -- what politicos call an AstroTurf campaign -- that provides a window into the sleight-of-hand ways of Washington.

More here.

Here we go. Maybe the calendar should be set back to 1984.

From Global Research:

In the wake of Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins' (R-ME) alarmist report, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat," the Senate may be moving towards passage of the Orwellian "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" (S. 1959).

A companion piece of legislative flotsam to the House bill, "The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" (H.R. 1955), the Democrat-controlled Congress seems ready to jettison Constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. The bill passed the House by a 404-6 vote in October. Twenty-three congress members abstained, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers.

More here.

When will politicians, and the people who vote for them, learn that the more you regulate something the harder you make it for honest, law abiding citizens to function as honest, law abiding citizens? Just look at gun control or the licensing requirements in some states for cosmetologists. I'm just saying.

Browsing through You Tube to day I came across this little ditty in support of Ron Paul:



Read more about Ron Paul here, here and here.

For those of you who don't know, Brooke Oberwetter, aka The Jefferson 1, was arrested for silently bopping her head in the Jefferson Memorial on April 13 as part of the Thomas Jefferson Dance Party, organized by our friends in Liberty over at Bureaucrash, to celebrate the occasion of Thomas Jefferson's 265th birthday, and as a way to revive the dancing-as-freedom meme.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:Really!? Standing around bopping your head on "public" property (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) is an arrestable offense?! Don't Park's Department personnel have more important things to do? Oh, right, they work for the Park's Department, of course they have nothing better to do. My bad.

Fore more info on the Jefferson 1 and to donate to her legal defense fund, visit the Free the Jefferson 1 weblog here.

Here's an interesting little piece about a handicapped man being tackled, arrested, and put on trial for recording a conversation with a police officer.

If the police insist on not being recorded, citizens will just get sneaky, and start recording them on the sly.

Here's an interesting story on the the current state of space law over at Transterrestrial Musings.

It mostly deals with space regulation and ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations).

A very interesting article that points out what happens when government gets involved where it shouldn't.

*warning: video not safe for work!



I know the "TSA / Long lines at the airport" story is old hat, but, I saw the above video today and just had to throw my two cents in.

First; Is it really the government's job to provide security for private companies?
Most of the companies I patronize provide their own security, whether it was the bouncer at my local watering hole, the security guard at the mall, or the surveillance cameras at the local convenience store. Why shouldn't airports and airlines do the same?

Second; What ever happened to the notion that we have a right to defend ourselves?
It is against the law, in this country and many others, to carry a loaded weapon aboard an airplane. But, I can almost guarantee with 99.999% certainty that, if there was at least one armed citizen aboard any one of the four aircraft hijacked on September 11, 2001, the terrorists on board that particular aircraft would've, at the very least, thought twice before taking action.

In this country nearly 50% of American households own some type of firearm.

Just imagine what would happen to any would be hijacker or terrorist if just 20% of the people aboard an aircraft were allowed to carry their firearms on board.
They'd probably shit their pants.

Also, has anyone ever noticed that states and localities that have the least stringent gun control laws also have the lowest incidences of violent crime ( that includes rape, armed robbery, and murder)? What moron would try to commit a violent crime when there's a 50% chance of coming up against someone who is armed?

But, I digress. This is about the TSA, not gun control.
I just so happen to think that the more the government interferes with private citizens and private companies the less secure we are and the more we have to worry about. Leave central planning schemes to the communists.
I mean, I always thought this was the USA, not the USSR.

In this video a man tells the police officer he won't sign a speeding ticket until he's shown the temporary speed limit sign, the cop then asks him to get out of the car. When the man points back down the road and insists he was going the speed limit, the police officer tazes him right there on the road. Naturally, the man's pregnant wife freaks the f*ck out.

Listen to the cop's explanation at the end. Was law and order helped or hindered through the actions of law enforcement? Please answer in the comments.

Oh, by the way; You actually have the right to refuse to sign a traffic ticket no matter what the cops may say.

No man has the right, under any circumstance, to initiate force against another man, nor to threaten or delegate said initiation of force. - The Zero Aggression Principle


As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government. -Dave Barry


I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will not live for the sake of another man's life, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine. - John Galt's Oath from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

From the ACLU:

In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported (warning: link is to a pdf document download) that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.

At that rate, our list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we'd all be dead.

More here.

Here's just a sampling of the names on that list (via the ACLU website):

Robert Johnson - 60 Minutes interviewed 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom reported being pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours, nearly every time they go to the airport.
Alexandra Hay, a college student with a double major in French and English at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2004, when she joined an ACLU lawsuit due to problems she was having with the airline watch list.
Sarosh Syed, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan working for the ACLU of Washington in Seattle also had problems flying. (Syed was also a plaintiff in the ACLU suit in 2004.)
9/11 Hijackers. While certainly these were individuals we all wish had been watched out for, they are, in fact, dead. Yet, the names of 14 of the 19 hijackers from 9/11 were on a copy of the list obtained by 60 Minutes . More evidence that the list is poorly maintained and full of junk names that will only serve to ensnare the innocent.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia. Name found on list obtained by 60 Minutes .
Saddam Hussein. Although he was imprisoned in Baghdad and in U.S. custody at the time, his name was also found in the database obtained by 60 Minutes. Again, this accomplishes nothing except ensnaring the innocent, diluting the list, and wasting the time of security workers.
Gary Smith. Another name that is extremely common in the United States, found on the no-fly list by 60 Minutes.
John Williams. Yet another common name found on the airline watch list by 60 Minutes.
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) After repeated delays at airport security, the senator had trouble getting removed from the airline watch list despite calls to Homeland Security and eventually a personal conversation with the Secretary of DHS.
Representative John Lewis (D, Georgia). Being a hero of the Civil Rights Movement isn't enough to keep off the aviation watch lists, apparently.
Akif Rahman, founder of a computer consulting company from suburban Chicago, was detained and questioned for more than two hours by U.S. customs officials on four separate occasions when crossing the Canadian border. On one occasion he was held for 5 ½ hours, shackled to a chair, and physically searched. He was also separated from his wife and children (who were forced to wait in a small dirty public area without food or telephones). A U.S. citizen born in Springfield Illinois, Rahman is being represented by the ACLU of Illinois in a lawsuit over this treatment.
Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown was blocked from flying while on his way home from an 8-month deployment in Iraq. He was listed as a suspected terrorist due to a previous incident in which gunpowder was detected on his boots, most likely a residue of a previous tour in Iraq.
Asif Iqbal, a Rochester, NY, management consultant and University of Texas graduate who flies weekly to Syracuse for business, has been weekly detained and interrogated by local law enforcement because his name is shared by a former Guantánamo detainee (who was himself released from the extrajudicial detainment, presumably because of lack of evidence of terror involvement).
James Moore, author of a book critical of the Bush Administration, Bush's Brain ; problems flying.
Catherine ("Cat") Stevens, wife of Senator Ted Stevens (R, Alaska). Problems flying.
Yusuf Islam, a singer and pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens. Author of song "Peace Train." His flight from London was diverted and forced to land in Maine once the government realized he was aboard, and he was barred from entering United States.
Major General Vernon Lewis (Ret.); a recipient of the Army's highest medal for service, the Distinguished Service Medal who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, Lewis had problems flying.