Since this is a Primary, there are too many different candidates in too many different races to cover every choice, so I’m just going to hit on a couple of the major ones that I have specific opinions on.
Governor Democrats – Vote for anyone but Jerry Brown. Republicans – Meg Whitman is the most likely candidate that could beat Jerry Brown in the general election.
U.S. Senate Democrats – As the incumbent, Barbara Boxer has no serious competition, so it really doesn’t matter who you vote for. Republicans – My pick is Carly Fiorino. She’s a fiscal conservative and somewhat moderate on social issues. She’s also got a chance of beating Barbara Boxer in the general election. Chuck DeVore, while fiscally conservative, is too socially conservative for me. Continue reading “Recommendations for June 8th Election Candidates”
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
If you want to be notified the next time I write something, sign up for email alerts or subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you live in California, please remember to vote on Tuesday.
PROP 13 – Seismic Retrofitting – Vote Yes
Provides that construction to seismically retrofit existing buildings will not trigger reassessment of property tax value and an increase in taxes.
This will encourage property owners to retrofit their buildings to make them safer in the event of an earthquake. Vote Yes
PROP 14, Top Two Primaries Act – Vote No
Changes the primary election to allow voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference. Only the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes in the primary would then appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference.
This is a bad idea that would virtually eliminate third party candidates from running in the general election and would likely create a situation where two candidates from the same party would face each other in the general election. We need more competition in elections, not less. Furthermore, this measure was put on the ballot as a political payoff to secure Abel Maldonado’s vote for last year’s state budget. Don’t reward the politicians who make back room deals at voters’ expense. Vote No.
PROP 15, CALIFORNIA FAIR ELECTIONS ACT – Vote No
Repeals the ban on public funding of political campaigns and creates a voluntary system for candidates for Secretary of State for the 2014 and 2018 elections to qualify for a public campaign grant if they agree to limitations on spending and private contributions. Funded by an increase in lobbyist registration fee from $12.50 per year to $350.
The problem with this measure is that it allows candidates to continue to raise funds from special interests and then also provides them with public funds if they limit their spending to a specified amount. Therefore, it really doesn’t do anything to make elections “more fair”. Also, once the ban on public funding of political campaigns is repealed, the Sacramento politicians can extend the use of public funds to candidates for other types of offices as well. While there may be an argument to be made for public financing of campaigns, this is not the way to do it. Vote No. Continue reading “Recommendations for June 8th Ballot Measures”
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
In this clip, Governor Chris Christie of NJ takes on a disgruntled teacher. What’s the teacher so upset about? Apparently, in order to deal with the current budget crisis, the governor has asked the teachers to forgo a raise for one year and contribute a small amount to their overall benefits package.
I wonder if we could entice Chris Christie to move to California and be our governor?
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
Getting a traffic ticket is no fun. It stings, usually to the tune of hundreds of dollars. What can make the experience even worse, though, is the realization that you’ve just been caught in the latest government scam to separate you from your hard earned cash.
If you want to avoid falling victim to one of the most egregious abuses of government power, you’d best avoid the public parks under the jurisdiction of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, otherwise known as the MRCA. This little known state agency, which administers the lands belonging to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District, and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District is out to get your money. And they’ll use every dirty trick possible to do it.
Their latest scheme is the installation of automated ticketing cameras at stop signs within their parks. Anyone who fails to come to a complete stop is hit with a one hundred one hundred and seventy five dollar ticket. Now we can all agree that blowing through a stop sign, especially in a park where pedestrians are likely to be present, is not only dangerous, but deserving of severe punishment as well as the contempt of your fellow citizens. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about what is commonly known as the California Stop, where a driver slows to a crawl but doesn’t quite stop completely before proceeding. Most drivers who engage in the rolling stop only do so when it’s clear that there’s no one around. You know, like in a quiet neighborhood or secluded park. And if there does happen to be another vehicle or pedestrian present, there’s plenty of opportunity to come to a full stop without putting anyone in danger. So, this is what is known as a technical violation. It’s a little like going 5 mph over the speed limit. Everyone does it at some point and no harm comes of it.
But regardless of the fact that this behavior puts no one at risk, the MRCA believes that if you engage in this practice on their turf, you deserve a $100 $175 fine. And to ensure that they can nab you, they’ve flagrantly skirted the state law that forbids the use of this type of automated enforcement. That’s right, this type of enforcement is not permitted under the California Vehicle Code, which is intended to be the law for all vehicles on the state’s roadways. So how can the MRCA get away with this abusive practice? They’ve simply declared that the law doesn’t apply to them. They’re special; they’re above the law. The arguments they make in support of this theory are extensive and I’ll leave that for another post where I’ll rebut them all.
What I want to concentrate on in this post, is their self serving claim that this is not about revenue enhancement, but rather all about safety. In fact, in response to the public outcry against this ticketing scheme, Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said: “I’m more worried about a law suit from somebody whose child is killed. We’d be sued for millions for not controlling the interface between visitors and cars.” Wow, it sure sounds like there must have been massive carnage on the roadways within these parks. Joe Edmiston just had to implement these automated fines to save the children.
So how many accidents or injuries can be attributed to drivers failing to stop at the stop signs on the roadways within the jurisdiction of the MRCA? Exactly zero. Not one. Not ever. When pressed, Joe Edmiston couldn’t cite even one accident or injury. Yet it was necessary to install these automated cameras which extract tens of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting park visitors yearly all in an effort to save the children. Of course, any reasonable person can see that safety has nothing to do with it. On the contrary, this is clearly about filling the coffers of the MRCA and enhancing their power within their little fiefdom.
But if you’re still not convinced that this isn’t about safety, have a look at one of these stop sign installations enforced with an automated ticketing camera.
In this picture, taken at Marvin Braude Mulholland Gateway Park at the top of Reseda Blvd in Tarzana, you can plainly see that the stop sign sits pretty much in the middle of the road. There’s no cross street, no crosswalk, no intersection; no chance that any vehicle or pedestrian will cross your path. In fact, there’s absolutely no reason at all to have a stop sign here. And since there’s no common sense reason to stop, other than if you don’t, you’ll get a $100 $175 ticket; many motorists only slow down rather than come to a complete stop. Sure, it’s technically a violation, but only because the MRCA arbitrarily criminalized the behavior. What reason could the MRCA have for locating this sign in such a ridiculous and confusing location? Could it be purely in an attempt to collect as many $100 $175 fines as possible? It certainly isn’t to save the children.
And just to drive the point home, the reverse view of this idiotic photo enforced stop sign installation makes it even more obvious that it was placed in such a way as to ensnare the maximum number of park visitors and reap the greatest amount of revenue.
And if you want to express your outrage at how a rogue government agency is engaging in highway robbery, call your city and state representatives. They’ll probably tell you it’s perfectly legal; it’s not. One field deputy for former state senator Sheila Kuehl told me, “Well if the government is doing it, it has to be legal”. Brilliant. But you don’t have to get into any legal debates. Just tell them you abhor this type of blatant revenue enhancement scheme. Tell them you want them to look into it. At the very least, they’ll be on notice that you’re keeping an eye on the actions of our public officials.
And if you happen to have gotten one of these tickets, I want to hear about it. If you’re still fighting it, maybe you can be a test case to get this overturned. If your case is already finished, you should know that there’s a class action lawsuit in the works. I’ll post more about that when I have an update.
Finally, if you suspect that I’m so outraged about this because I’ve gotten one of these bogus tickets, you’d be wrong. I’ve successfully avoided contributing to the MRCA’s stop sign fund, mainly because I refuse to visit and drive in their parks. It’s my own little boycott.
After this article was posted, I found that the citation has recently been increased to $175. Now we can all be doubly outraged.
If you’d like to be kept informed about lawsuits or other actions we’re taking to stop this illegal money grab by the MRCA, you can sign up for email alerts using the form under the heading “Subscribe to the Freedom Minute Newsletter” in the sidebar to the right of this post. Enter your name and email address and check the box for “MRCA Alerts” under “You can also sign up for specific lists” and you’ll always get the most up-to-date information.
For more detailed information about the MRCA photo enforcement scam, read the follow-up article FAQ About MRCA Stop Sign Tickets. It will answer many of your questions.
Loading ...
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
Since I can’t feed content from Facebook directly into the blog, I decided to post the contents of a spirited debate that was started when I posted the following:
Jay Beeber: Thomas Jefferson and the rest of our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves.
Kathy Ann Wittes
We’re going to fight back.
Kathy Ann Wittes
If you want, come to the Hollywood Republicans dinner 1st Wed in April at the
Steve Humphreys
Oh and they weren’t when we illegally invaded another country and waterboarded suspected terrorists?
Cristina Nenadov
I am with Steve!
Tom Quinn
Selective memory is so convenient, don’t you think?
Jay Beeber
@Steve are you advocating the “two wrongs make a right” theory of government?
Steve Humphreys
Jay: I’m not advocating “two wrongs make a right”. Please explain to me what is so horribly wrong with a health care policy that will help people we both know? (ie: all of our friends who have no insurance) It’s not perfect but at least after trying to do something since the deperession, it’s a start.
Louisa Cilento
I’m one of those people who’s job doesn’t provide health insurance but that didn’t stop me from getting it on my own. I’ve have my individual plan my whole life. I hate when people think not being able to afford it and don’t want to afford it are the same thing! People who don’t want to pay now are still not going to want to pay anything…and won’t. How is that right?
Tom Quinn
Well said, Louisa!
Stephanie Witherspoon
Tell that to my friend who’s stuck in a horrible job because her pre-existing conditions have meant she wouldn’t be able to change insurance carriers because the premiums would be too high, if they’d take her at all. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it’s a step in the right direction, and the first step that’s been taken in 100 YEARS. It’s easy for people who HAVE insurance to bemoan the healthcare bill. Try talking to some people that NEEDED this change.
Robyn Castellano Rubin
Any company’s group policy would have accepted her. But not to worry, we’ll pay for everyone now so why get any job at all?
Rafferty Fartengaten
You mean you thought you weren’t paying for everyone already?! Wow, how naive. I guess if you knew you wouldn’t have agreed to that. Why do you think costs are so high? Well apart from the fact that insurance, pharmaceutical & medical supply companies can charge whatever they want. Who is going to say no. If you want no regulation like good Capitalists then accept this- in the short to medium term at least the companies have no need to have a moral responsibility, only an economic drive. So accepting that, anyone who can’t afford it should either stay sick… or “fall by the supply/demand wayside” … & by that I mean die. If you can accept that as legitimate collateral damage then bring forth complete open markets. Too many goddamn people anyway
Rafferty Fartengaten
Answer me this riddlers. I just got a prescription filled for generic Augmenten. How much without insurance is it? And how much in Australia or the UK? The basic multifunction effective antibiotic- it’s $103 here. It’s about $25 in Australia. Explain that price variation & why can’t we then just get our meds from oneseas legally if we have ‘open markets’ now. I wonder why the pharmaceutical companies would lobby the GOVT not to have that happen?
Jay Beeber
We don’t have open markets now. Health care, insurance, etc. are some of the most highly regulated industries in the US. Due to government interference, the market is not free, open or competitive. And yes, we can’t buy from overseas because the pharmaceutical industry co-opted the power of government to forbid us from doing something we should have every right to do. I don’t know the Australian system all that well, but I suspect that the drug is cheaper over there either because it is somehow subsidized by the taxpayers and/or the cost of developing the drug, getting approved, and bringing it to market is less than it is here. Another possibility is that the AU gov’t has put in place price controls and people in other countries that don’t have such controls are paying the difference.
Julien Batelaan Humphreys
Right, if she could find a job with a company providing employee health coverage, which many don’t nowadays.
And, besides, we are paying for those that don’t have it now. We pay for them to wait in long lines at USC Medical Center and get treated like subhumans (like my friend, who definitely can’t afford own her policy, and had nowhere else to go recently when she badly cut her finger).
Jay, I doubt Jefferson is spinning in his grave. He was too busy doing his female slaves to care about the many people suffering in many different ways at the time. (And, no, I’m not a Jefferson hater. Admittedly, just making a snarky point.) Brings to mind all the politicans who have been so vehemently against something that is meant to help the quality of life of their fellow Americans. Hypocrites and purveyors of death and destruction (read: our current war). Spent too much money on that to support something altruistic and for the greater good.
Jay Beeber
@Julien If it really would help the quality of life overall, I might be inclined to support it, but I believe it will make health care more expensive overall and the taxpayers will have to keep shouldering more and more of the burden down the road. To understand why I believe that, you have to read the posts on my blog, there is not enough room to put all that here. Post over there if you disagree with the facts I list and my conclusions.
But the main point of my original post is that there is supposed to be limits on what the Federal Gov’t can and can’t do. I object to people being forced to buy a product from a private company (especially companies that have a track record like the health insurance industry). Never before has the Federal Gov’t extended itself this far and I think it’s a terrible precedent to set, no matter how well intentioned. And I’ll be posting about that in detail on my blog as well if I can steal a free moment away from answering comments on FB.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
As the State of California struggles with its worst financial crisis in decades, lawmakers in Sacramento have finally turned their attention to something really important – cussing. On Thursday, the assembly passed a Concurrent Resolution declaring the first week of March as “Cuss-Free Week”. Since it’s only a resolution and doesn’t carry the weight of law, no one would actually be required to comply. But it isn’t hard to envision a scenario where the two brilliant assembly members who sponsored this measure, Anthony Portantino and Cameron Smyth, would have imposed a fine if they could have.
The idea originated with then junior high student McKay Hatch who started a No Cussing Club at his school two years ago. Using the infallible logic of his 14 year old mind, Hatch surmised that cussing led to drug use, pornography and violence and the world would be just peachy keen if we could only curtail foul language. So, of course, our elected officials thought that a no cussing rule would be the perfect solution to many of our real, adult problems as well. Why else would they take time out of their busy schedules to concentrate their efforts on this pressing matter? It certainly is comforting to know that these statesmen are legitimately earning their $95,000 a year salaries.
Come to think of it, perhaps this is a good idea after all. Maybe if the legislature spent more time on these types of inane resolutions, they’d have less time to raise taxes and drive business out of the state through their job killing regulations. In fact, perhaps we do need more legislation thought up by pubescent teens. How about an “I’m Rubber, You’re Glue Week” where everything unpleasant you say to someone bounces off them and sticks to you. This might curtail gang violence. Or maybe we should implement a “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire Week” during which, if you’re caught being untruthful, some official would actually douse you in gasoline and set you ablaze. Hey, it’s not any more ridiculous than many of the actual laws dreamed up in our halls of government.
Loading ...
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
To a large extent, the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat was a referendum on the Democrats’ legislative ambitions in general and the current health care reform bill in particular. There are lessons to be learned from Scott Brown’s defeat of Martha Coakley to become the 41st Republican in the Senate, and one hopes the President and Congress are a quick study.
Contrary to what some liberals (oops, I mean “progressives”) like Michael Moore would wish to believe, the Democratic base did not desert those in power because they weren’t liberal enough. On the contrary, Brown won because independents and many moderate Democrats are unhappy with what appears to be this administration’s preference for big government solutions and the resulting increases in taxes and debt.
The health care bill is a good case in point. The President and the Democratically controlled Congress are attempting to foist upon the American people a trillion dollar health care plan, bought and paid for with backroom deals, and loaded with giveaways to the health care and health insurance industries. The President campaigned on “change”. But if this health care bill doesn’t prove that it’s still business as usual in Washington, nothing does.
So what should the President do? First, he should abandon the health care reform bill in its current form. Make no mistake, neither the House nor Senate bills address the real reasons for out of control heath care costs and would do little more than force everyone to purchase the health insurance industry’s flawed product; most likely at a higher cost. Pushing this catastrophically flawed bill through Congress, especially if the effort appears to involve any appearance of political gamesmanship, would be political suicide for the Democrats. Instead, the President and Congress should concentrate on only those reforms upon which most everyone can agree. It’s likely that with a scaled back, targeted approach to health care reform a few Republicans could be brought on board. (I’ll provide details in another post.) Not only would this be a huge win for the American people, but politically it would show that Obama is not only interested in bringing about change, he’s capable of change himself.
Second, the President should recognize that you can’t win elections without the backing of moderate and independent voters, and in Massachusetts they voted for a course correction. In his first year in office, Obama made the same mistake Bill Clinton made in 1992. Clinton beat Bush by appealing to independents and the so called “Reagan democrats”. But once in office, he pushed a classically liberal democratic agenda, the centerpiece of which was a big government health care reform bill. His approval ratings tanked and in the 1994 mid-term elections the Democrats lost control of both Houses of Congress. But Clinton learned his lesson, and for the rest of that term he chose to govern from the center, rather than the liberal left. He handily won re-election and by all accounts left office a popular and successful president. (Except, perhaps, for that impeachment thing.)
President Obama is actually lucky in that he’s had some early warning signs of the impending political disaster headed his way. If last November’s Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey didn’t wake him up, certainly what happened in Massachusetts should do the trick. If he’s smart, he’ll make it clear that he’s heard the will of the people. He’ll become more fiscally conservative and dial back on his ambitious agenda. He’ll try to truly usher in an era of bipartisanship by repudiating ideas that would lead to bigger government intrusion in our lives and he’ll take a more market oriented approach to the reforms he wants to implement. He’ll steer clear of job killing legislation like Cap and Trade and he’ll consider options for reducing the deficit, not increasing it.
Hopefully, President Obama has gotten the message sent by the voters of Massachusetts. If not, in the 2010 midterm elections, it will be, as Yogi Berra used to say, deja vu all over again.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
It’s really gratifying when your analysis of an issue is validated on a respected national news show. On last night’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, Steve Kroft had this to say about why health care costs, especially for end of life care, are spiraling out of control:
In almost every business, cost-conscious customers and consumers help keep prices down. But not with health care. That’s because the customers and consumers who are receiving the care aren’t the ones paying the bill.
In fact, as Kroft reveals, 85 percent of health care bills are paid by the government or private insurers, not by patients themselves.
Unfortunately, the health care reform plans favored by the President and Congress will only make matters worse since they further insulate consumers from the cost of their medical care decisions by forcing more Americans to buy basic health insurance and covering more of the population under government paid for health care programs. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Instead of making people more responsible for their decisions, the government is drafting legislation that will make people less responsible for the cost of their health care. As Dr. Elliot Fisher says at another point in this 60 Minutes segment, “In medicine we have turned the laws of supply and demand upside down”.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
In part one of this series, we looked at the underlying reasons why healthcare is so expensive. We now focus on health insurance and the role it plays in causing our health care system to be more dysfunctional than it need be. We’ll see that the health insurance system which has evolved here in the United States both contributes to the high cost of medical care and creates additional impediments to providing health care to the population as a whole.
An Historical Perspective
In order to understand health insurance in the United States, it’s necessary to know a little about how the system evolved into what we have today. An excellent history can be found here and I encourage you to read it.
To summarize, the modern health insurance system has its roots in the 1920’s. Around this time, costs for medical care began to rise due to advances in technology and a subsequent increase in demand. In addition, increased requirements for physician licensure, education and the accreditation of medical schools restricted physician supply, putting upward pressure on the costs of physicians’ services. Continue reading “The Problem with Health Insurance”
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
This is a multipart series on health care reform. You may find it easier follow the discussion from the beginning. If you haven’t already read the introduction, you can find it here.
First, we need to define what we mean when we say that health care is too expensive. Do we mean that it costs too much to visit the doctor for a checkup, or an x-ray, or a flu vaccine? Do we mean that the average person can’t afford any type of health insurance? Do we mean that if you get cancer or some other major disease or need major surgery you can’t possibly afford to pay for all the medical bills you will incur? Or are we talking about the fact that the percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on heath care continues to increase every year and is much greater than what is spent in other Western countries?
When we break it down this way, we can see that in some cases, heath care is not “too expensive” for the average American. Most people, even those without health insurance, can afford to visit the doctor for minor or routine medical care. Sure, it might cost more than we’d like, but then again it cost me more than I’d have liked to replace the clutch in my Toyota, but I accept that as the normal cost of owning a car. If you take on the responsibility for anything, be it a car, or a house, a child, or your body, eventually you will have maintenance costs and you just have to plan for such things. Although the price of a doctor’s visit is actually more expensive in real dollars today by about a factor of two than it was in the early sixties (later we’ll discuss the reasons for that and the fact that it’s not an apples to apples comparison) the cost is still not out of reach for the average person. Likewise, while the cost of what we call health insurance (I’ll explain later why it isn’t really “insurance”) continues to increase, almost 85% of the U.S. population is able to obtain health insurance either on their own or through their employer. True, there are huge problems with health insurance that need to be addressed, but generally health insurance is still somewhat affordable for most people. Of course there is a small percentage of the population, the very poor, who can’t afford any health care or health insurance, though many of them can obtain some basic health care through existing Federal and State programs. Continue reading “Why is Health Care So Expensive?”
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with others by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button above or one or more of the icons below. If you wish to be notified each time I put up a new post, you can subscribe through one of the links to the right. (If you don’t know what RSS is, just choose the email option.) Finally, leave some feedback or join the discussion by commenting below. I’d love to know what you think.
The Freedom Minute is dedicated to a discussion of all things having
to do with personal freedom and what I see as the steady encroachment by
government on our personal rights. I take a decidedly libertarian point of
view in my analysis of economics and personal freedoms. Note that I
intentionally spell libertarian with a small "l" since I identify more
with the overall philosophy than with any political party. If you're not
familiar with libertarian philosophy or you think you know what it is, it
might be useful to read the short primer which appears in the Philosophy
section. In addition, you might want to grab a copy of Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz or Libertarianism in One Lesson by David Bergland, both excellent books on libertarian thought.
As for this site, I attempt to be as evenhanded in my
approach as possible. There is no question that I have a point of view and
an opinion. I state that up front. Many times I will give both sides to an
argument before stating why I agree or disagree. Under most circumstances,
it should be easy to distinguish between the facts and my personal
opinion. If I think there might be some confusion between the two, I will
try to specifically point out when I'm giving my opinion as opposed to
relating facts that I have researched.
My goal, if there is one
beyond my desire to create a public forum for my personal opinions, is to
get people to think about things in a way they might not have thought
about them before. I don't know if I will change many minds, but one can
hope. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, "If a man is
offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it
closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to
believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a
reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even
on the slightest evidence". I hope that even if you disagree, you read
this site with an open mind. I can ask for nothing more.
Since this is a Primary, there are too many different candidates in too many different races to cover every choice, so I’m just going to hit on a couple of the major ones that I have specific opinions on.
Loading ...
by David Boaz or 
by David Bergland, both excellent books on libertarian thought.
sending...
