TJ Rodgers on Green Energy

A Visitor From The Past

A VISITOR FROM THE PAST
by Thelen Paulk

I had a dream the other night, I didn't understand.
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty, as he stood there by the bed,
He took off his three-cornered hat, and speaking low, he said:

"We fought a revolution, to secure our liberty.
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny,
For future generations, this legacy we gave,
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave."

"The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep.
But tyrants labored endlessly, while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone, your courage lost, you're no more
than a slave,
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave."

"You buy permits to travel, and permits to own a gun,
Permits to start a business, or to build a place for one.
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent,
Although you have no voice in choosing how the money's spent."

"Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate.
Your Christian values can't be taught, according to the state.
You read about the current news, in a regulated press.
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the I.R.S."

"Your money is no longer made of silver or of gold.
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make our nation turn from God in shame,
You've taken Satan's number, as you've traded in your name."

"You've given government control to those who do you harm,
So they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm,
And keep the country deep in debt, put men of God in jail,
Harass your fellow countrymen, while corrupted courts prevail."

"Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oath they've sworn.
Your daughters visit doctors so their children won't be born.
Your leaders ship artillery and guns to foreign shores,
And send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people's wars."

"Can you regain freedom for which we fought and died?
Or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride?
Are there no more values for which you'll fight to save?
Or do you wish your children to live in fear and be a slave?"

"Sons of the Republic, arise and take a stand!
Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land!
Preserve our great republic and each God-given right,
And pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright!"

As I awoke he vanished, in the mist from which he came.
His words were true, we are not free. We have ourselves to blame.
For even now as tyrants trample each God-given right,
We only watch and tremble, too afraid to stand and fight.

If he stood by your bedside, in a dream while you're asleep,
And wondered what remains of our rights he fought to keep,
What would be your answer, if he called out from the grave?
Is this still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

My Weekend Paul-Chasing

Events I attended:

Saturday - Soldiers, Airmen, and Sailors for Ron Paul - News Article

Sunday - Small Business and Union Workers for Ron Paul - News Article

Monday - Solving Detroit's Crises: A Townhall - News Article

Libertarian Solutions to Environmental Problems

My College Rant

A college education is something my parents would have had to get had they stayed in socialist Poland. That's simply because not having a college education meant working on the docks, in the factories, or underground in the coal mines. There weren't any real opportunities. That is how all stagnant societies are: they are bureaucratized and thus require artificial and token certificates and licenses in order to advance and climb the socioeconomic ladder.

America used to be different. America used to be the land of opportunity. You didn't have to have a college education or even any formal schooling. You had the opportunity to network, to start on the bottom rung of society, save your money, and work up the ladder. Your children had the same opportunity, so over time your family had the possibility of traveling from the very bottom to the very top. Case in point: people like John D. Rockefeller and (later) Arthur Jones. This still exists in some corners of America, as evidenced by successful college drop-outs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but this is rapidly fading.

But America has lost that vitality, youthfulness, and opportunity. Overregulation, overtaxation, and overspending has thrown our economy back to the feudal ages, when you needed a permit from the government to run any business, you needed a government license to get any good-paying job, and all of the fruits of your labor were automatically assumed to be owned by someone other than yourself. Along with a decaying, expanding government in its death-throes, our culture has decayed. Now everyone must go to college to get a degree, even if that degree is a piece-of-shit English degree that won't serve you later in life. Barely anyone will hire you to do any worthwhile job if you don't have some degree, even if it is not related to the work to be done.

If we peeled back the government controls and restrictions, if we peeled back the welfare state, then everyone would not have to go to college. We'd return to a true opportunity society where one rises based on their merits, not on some artificial bureaucratic processes involving government licenses and permits.

And two more things that I don't know how to fit into this post:

1. College schooling (not education) is a bubble driven by artificially low interest rates and government subsidies and restrictions. It'll collapse soon.

2. The Founding Fathers and most great intellectuals throughout history were self-educated. They did not need formal bureaucratic processes and government licenses to make the great breakthroughs that they made.

Ron Paul on Earmarks

Earmarks don't actually increase spending. They only "assign" how that money is to be spent. That assigning ought to be done through the legislative branch, which is closer to the people, than through the executive branch, which concentrates power away from the people.

Walter Block's Environmentalism