Thoughts Aloud

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The following came from: http://freespeechforpeople.org/McGovern

Congressman McGovern Introduces the People’s Rights Amendment

CONGRESSMAN JIM MCGOVERN INTRODUCES CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL TO OVERTURN CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

‘Corporations Are Not People’

‘PEOPLE’S RIGHTS AMENDMENT’ WOULD REPEAL CITIZENS UNITED RULING AND THE CORPORATE RIGHTS DOCTRINE
 
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts introduced today a constitutional amendment bill to overturn the US Supreme Court’s January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and to make clear that corporations are not people with rights under the US Constitution. The introduction of the bill – the “People’s Rights Amendment” — marks a major breakthrough in the growing movement across the country to end corporate personhood and restore democracy to the people. 

“Corporations are not people,” said Congressman McGovern. “They do not breathe. They do not have children. They do not die in war. They are artificial entities which we the people create and, as such, we govern them, not the other way around.”

“The Citizens United ruling,” McGovern continued, “marks the most extreme extension of a corporate rights doctrine which has eroded our First Amendment and our Constitution. Now is the time for a 28th Amendment that lifts up the promise of American self-government: of, for, and by the people.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Our friend Greg wants a conversation on gun ownership so I have posted this document to “host” such a conversation.

Naturally, any valid discussion of gun ownership must include the idea of repealing the 2nd amendment to our Constitution. I say this because, given the wording and intent of the 2nd amendment, no meaningful controls on gun ownership are possible while said amendment exists.
Read the rest of this entry »

During his recent overseas trip, GOP presidential candidate presumptive Mitt Robamaney made a comment to the effect that Israel has a much more vibrant economy than Palestine because they have a superior culture. Once the lame-stream-media attacks began, he backed off to a new position where he claimed that the Palestinians do poorly because of the choices they make.

First, I think the modified statement really says the same thing as the original because the choices made by a society are driven largely by their culture.

Second, there was no reason for Mitt to have backed away from the original statement except for the insane rule of Political Correctness which lists “culture” as one of its “lightening rod” words, guaranteed to always cause a strike aimed directly at anyone who uses the word “incorrectly”.

Third, the real shame is that the notion of the effect of culture on the success (or failure) of a society is a discussion well worth having. Episodes like this only serve to ensure such a discussion WILL NOT be had, at least in a rational and public forum.

As readers of this blog should know, this is a subject I have raised, more than once, in regard to the different success rates of Blacks and non-Blacks in the United States.

Read the rest of this entry »

This comes from: U.S. Army Purchases Riot Gear As Fears Over Civil Unrest Grow

Follows DHS in preparation for domestic disorder
Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com
Monday, July 30, 2012
It’s not just the Department of Homeland Security that is gearing up for the prospect of civil unrest in America. The U.S. Army also recently purchased a stock of riot gear including batons, face masks and body shields.
As we reported last week, the DHS has put out an urgent solicitation for hundreds of items of “riot gear,” in preparation for expected unrest at the upcoming Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration.

Read the rest of this entry »

The nanny state is going after moms.

Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.

Starting Sept. 3, the city will keep tabs on the number of bottles that participating hospitals stock and use — the most restrictive pro-breast-milk program in the nation.

Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives.

Would it not be better to hide Nanny Bloomberg behind locked doors?

Is there no end to this meddling in our private lives??

Is there no point where the sheeple butt back and baa that they have had enough???
Read the rest of this entry »

As we all knew would happen, the usual gang are howling for more gun control, for an assault weapons ban, for a federal registry, for most anything that would limit our gun rights. And this would stop all atrocities such as happened in Aurora, right? Hardly!

So, join me in playing out a different scenario in Aurora…

I am a certifiable loon and I have some grievance (real or imagined) that can only be ameliorated by slaughtering some folks I never met, so off I go to do the deed that must be done.

I decide a crowded movie theater is a good venue and that the thing will be best done after dark.

So, off I go to the nearest sporting goods store and ask the guy at the counter for the “Rambo Special”, complete with body armor. Said guy tells me that Colorado has just passed some serious gun control laws and there is no way I can purchase said Rambo Special.
Read the rest of this entry »

The progressives have a mantra that (I suspect) they chant as the go about their evil. It is: ”Reward failure but punish success”.

Wealthy left out of Bush-era tax cut renewal
Embracing President Obama’s plan to extend only some of the Bush-era tax cuts, Senate Democrats on Wednesday passed a bill that would mean stable income tax rates for most Americans but a sizable increase for the wealthiest.

To add insult to injury, the Marxist-in-Chief repeated the statement that continuing the Bush-era tax cuts for the “wealthy” would be ”a massive giveaway”.

Say what? I thought to “give” meant to transfer something that is YOURS to someone else. For this statement to be true would mean that the government actually “owns” all the wealth in the nation, yet, through its boundless generosity, it allows the sheeple to keep part of what they earned (for the government). Heck, it even allows some of you to “keep” part of what I earned (for the government).
Read the rest of this entry »

House GOP sets course for fully funded Obamacare

CNSNews.com

When asked whether the House Republicans would permit or not permit funding for Obamacare in whatever legislation is enacted to fund the government after Sept. 30, when the current funding legislation runs out, House Speaker John Boehner responded that “our goal would be to make sure the government is funded,” thus indicating that House Republicans do plan to fund implementation of Obamacare past Sept. 30. Read & Comment

Thus speak the “leaders” of the Party that promises to save you from Obamacare, return us to fiscal sanity, restore the Constitution! Sure they will.

I wish to suggest that the only reason most Americans don’t see these bums for what they are is that the Dems are so much worse. While that is true, NEITHER of the duopoly parties are on YOUR side. What will it take to get your attention??

I will exclaim once again – the only difference between the duopoly parties is the special interests they favor with YOUR money. Otherwise, they are the same.

Yes, the TEA Party got a few for-real patriots elected in 2010, but not nearly enough to make any real difference. And, you can bet that even some of these will catch the power fever before long and go over to the “dark side”.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to enjoy a very well written blog, try this one.

It is written by Matt Ridley, author of several books including my favorite The Rational Optimist

Last year, J9 and I had the distinct pleasure of spending part of a day touring the old fort in San Juan, PR with Mr. Ridley (while on last year’s Reason Cruise — still not to late to get into this year’s cruise ).

Troy

Once again some nutcase has misused his freedom to harm others. While this is a tragedy to the nation, and much more so to the friends and families of the victims, it once again illustrates something very odd (and, I suppose, very human?) about the way we as a people react to violent death. Very inconsistently!

One of the things most obvious about our inconsistency is one of numbers. All over the world, every instant in time, some human is violently killing another. And, for the most part, we ignore it. In the mostly unknown killings in question, the killer failed to meet some mysterious threshold of body count for the killings in question to constitute a “national tragedy”. And, that threshold itself is somewhat inconsistent, varying (I suppose) with the general climate of killing in the world.

Another obvious inconsistency is one involving the “tools” used in the killings. For instance, a massive automobile pileup that results in enough simultaneous deaths to meet the threshold for firearms deaths to rate tragedy status may get only passing mention in the national news. In fact, we hardly get excited (as a nation) over the fact that automobiles are the “tools” of tens of thousands of deaths, dwarfing the number that can be attributed to firearms excepting in the midst of a major war.
Read the rest of this entry »

In several of my articles in this blog, I have suggested that people arm themselves and be prepared for a collapse of major portions of our society.

However, I seem, to some at least, to be an outright advocate of violence, so it seems to me that some attempt to explain might be in order.

Let me begin this explanation by reminding you that I am a strict Objectivist (that is, a strict adherent to the philosophy of Ayn Rand). Among other tenents of this philosophy is that the initiation of violence is NEVER justified. However, the use of violence in defending one’s self and one’s property IS justified.

Put another way, if you pose some real threat to me, I would prefer that we settle our differences using our rational minds to sort things out. But, if you insist on attacking me, whether that attack be on my person, my property or my freedom, then I will react as violently as I am capable of doing, with the thought that, the more violent my reaction, the faster the attack will cease.

Under NO circumstance would I ever advocate the use (or even the threat) of violence to take from another what they have ethically earned or built.

Now that my basic principles toward violence have been exposed, let us discuss some more subtle aspects of our current national situation.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have put off writing this article. Partly because I acknowledge a personal prejudice (I detest organized sports in alleged “education facilities” because of something that happened when I was in high school).

I have also put it off partly because the very subject of the article disgusts me to the core of my being.

Having established this preamble, let us get on with it.

If there is any single incident in recent memory that illustrates how empty our value system has become, how low our standards have sunk, it must be the ongoing scandal at Penn State University where a serial child abuser – hell, let us be more frank about it – a serial homosexual rapist, was allowed to continue to prey on young boys with the full knowledge of his superiors.

And, why was this allowed to happen? Simple. Because his coaching skill was helping the school’s football team win games!

That is right my friends, an unknown number of innocent young men ware sacrificed at the alter of a winning team! And, if you are not disgusted to the point of nausea by this, shame on you.

Now, let me further offend many of you by adding, if you still support semi-professional sports in what were intended to be institutions of higher education, than shame on you twice.

Indeed, if you still support professional sports in general, shame on you three times.

As if the Penn State tragedy were not enough, we have an ongoing scandal involving bonuses being paid to professional football players for physically injuring other players.
Read the rest of this entry »

The comment nesting under Is This What You Really Want has reached critical mess so I am starting a new thread to continue the discussion RE voting for Robamaney simply to vote AGAINST Obama….

Daedalus said:

OK Dave, I have no love for Romney, He is just another “middle of the road progressive.” The idiot gracing our executive office presently has already done incalculable damage to the country both before and after taking office.
I think another four years of marxist leadership will be the death knell for the Republic. That is my personal opinion. I am not going to put a feather on O’Bamas side of the scales if I can help it. That includes voting for someone else or not voting at all, too much is at stake. Our dear president is trying to put the final nail in the coffin of the Republic.
Now the previous burst of emotional rhetoric here is just that, but I can if needed back up the rhetoric with fact.

I happen to agree with the probability that another Obama win would be the (temporary) end of the Republic (as does no less authority than Dr. Thomas Sowell). However, I disagree from the position that one has a moral duty to vote one’s conscience.
Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent speech in Roanoke, VA, Barack Obama said:

“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. … I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”

He went on to bray about how “successful” people and businesses depend on common infrastructure, like roads, bridges, power lines, schools, etc. that were supplied by all of us as if those things were not just as accessible to the “worker” as to those who capitalize, plan, organize and direct.

There is a simple fact of economics that we seem loath to bring into the ongoing arguments about ‘fairness”, the distribution of the rewards of production, etc. And, we who support the basic morality as well as the efficiency, and even the fundamental “fairness” of Capitalism and The Free Market System are consistently losing these arguments. This is partly because an increasing number of our citizens simply lack the education necessary to understand the underlying facts and that the emotional reaction to the progressive argument seems to ring true. After all, what could possibly be more fair than to have the rewards of production distributed equally to all?

But, the larger reason is the we Free Market Capitalists simply DO NOT effectively argue our position. Far too often, we don’t even try – we let the progressives win the argument by default.

Read the rest of this entry »

My spouse recently received a campaign mailing from the Robamaney campaign. Among other stupid statements was this jewel at the top of page 3:

My approach to spending will be simple. I will approach every spending decision by asking two questions: Can we afford it? And, if not, is it worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?”

Lest any of you think this is a joke, I can mail Dave a jpeg of the entire document for posting on this site.

So, I ask you , are these the questions that would be asked by someone who was serious about “fixing” Washington DC, about reining in spending, or, most important, about returning us to Constitutional government?

Hardly.

These are the words of a business-as-usual member of the establishment.

Allow me to offer my own questions, prior to approving new or additional spending:

Question 1: Is it Constitutional?

Question 2: Can we do without it?

Question 3: Might it be better left to the States?

Two things jump off the page in reference to Robamaney’s thinking:

First is that most any federal spending is fine and dandy if we can get the money to pay for it, and,

Second, that continuing to explode our national debt is also fine and dandy so long a it is for something we really want.

This nonsense alone should be enough to turn any patriot against Mitt Robamaney.

Please allow me to make a few suggestions to you before you respond “anybody but Obama, ergo Robamaney is the only alternative”.

Read the rest of this entry »

The more I see of ex-Governor Robamaney, the more I want to scream at Republicans “what the f— is the matter with you people”?

Once again, the GOP has chosen an empty suit to represent it in the presidential election!

This does not mean an automatic GOP loss though. Sometimes the Dems choose their own even emptier suit (Kerry? Gore?) and the GOP empty suit actually wins the election (Bush?) but the Republic always loses in the end.

Why do they keep doing this (I say ‘they” because I have not backed any of the empty suits in either party. Indeed, Ron Paul is the first duopoly party candidate I have supported in years.)

Professor Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. By that definition, can we not conclude that the majority of the voters in this Republic are insane?

Are we to believe that this once-great Republic, the one who sent humans to the moon, the one on the brink of finding cures for virtually every human disease, the one that produced the greatest combination of wealth and liberty the world has ever seen, that such a Republic can no longer produce any statesmen(women) capable of garnering a nomination, wining an election, then governing per our Constitution, guided by the health of the Republic and its People?

I refuse to believe this. I also refuse to believe that the People are somehow incapable of nominating then electing a statesman(woman) to the office of the president. Why then do we continue to see the constant repetition of this farce?
Read the rest of this entry »

I have started this thread to handle any additional discussion of the possibility of electronic voting and/or of an electronic national ID card, now being discussed under: https://www.thoughtsaloud.com/2012/07/09/i-want-a-constitutional-convention/

Troy

Blogging about the Federal Reserve and its manifold crimes against the American People makes my blood run so hot that I thought to change the subject, if only for a moment.

All of my adult life, I have been an amateur historian. Like most of you, I found high school history boring beyond words. But, once I was free to focus on the elements of history that interested me (something other than the exact date when A shot B), then I found it to be a total delight.

However, I have learned some valuable lessons from the study of history – lessons not part of the history in question but about the very nature of history.

Allow me to set the tone for what follows with my favorite quote from the late Will Rogers: ”things ain’t like they used to be and probably never were”.

On the surface, this is cute, possibly even funny. But, beneath that lies a philosophical insight of the type Mr. Rogers was justly famous for. That is, that much of what we think remember is fable that we have spun around a nugget of fact. If we are honest about it, we can each look into our own personal histories and admit that, in retelling events from that history, at times we added a little “seasoning” to our tale to make it easier to consume.

Usually, this was not done out of any malicious intent. It could be that we honestly could not remember all the details so we filled in the blanks with bits that made the whole sound right. Perhaps the actual details, as we remember them, made an event that was important to ourselves, not very interesting to people we relate it to. So, in goes a dash of this, a few drops of that and, voila, a well seasoned tale, palatable to some if not all. And, the more we retell the well-seasoned tale, the more it assumes the aura of absolute fact in our own memories.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a new article meant to accommodate further comments on the Federal Reserve and our Economic system started in the I Want a Constitutional Convention thread below.

Greg asked:

Are we speaking of going back to the “gold” standard (or whatever the new standard would be)?

I care little what the standard is so long as it has intrinsic value and is in limited supply. Having said that, precious metals served the purpose quite well for a very long time. And, that system did not “break”. What happened was the desire of our manipulators to be free of the restraints that system imposed.

So, representatives of the global financial cartel convinced a combination of gullible fools and dedicated crooks to create the Federal Reserve, which is neither “Federal” nor a “Reserve”. It is nothing more than a for-profit business with significant foreign ownership that manipulates our currency for fun and profit (their profit, not ours). Since the birth of this monster, economists estimate that our currency has “lost” (been robbed of) 95 to 98 percent of its value (choose the percentage you prefer — it makes little difference). It has brought us repeated recessions and one Great Depression, along with a lengthened recovery time from each such event.

Think about this for a moment… As the Federal Reserve approaches the 100th anniversary of its creation, it still has just enough time to match that with a 100% decline in the value of the currency it was supposedly created to protect. It is hard for me to imagine a more complete, more obvious failure that this. If, indeed, “failure” is what it be (we can discuss this line of thought later).
Read the rest of this entry »

I am submitting this new article to allow continuation of the comments under the Two Things That are Driving Me Crazy post below that are concerned with the Intent behind several acts of Congress including (but not limited to): The Civil Rights Act and/or any other law that seeks to change our citizen’s attitudes and non-violent behavior toward each other or toward any group they may identify with.

I will try to trigger further comment by repeating my earlier comment that the Civil Rights Act was wrong-headed, was partly unconstitutional, had unintended consequences as bad as any wrongs it sought to right, and that its passage by Congress was driven more by pandering for votes than by any general sympathy for the Black Community.

I justify this last claim by simply pointing to the condition of Black families in our inner cities who are being “helped” by government programs. I contend that these people are actually captured in a sort of intentional social-political slavery from which escape is nearly impossible because of its many self-defeating attributes.

Before the Civil War, a Black slave at least had some chance to sneak off the plantation and enter the so-called “Underground Railroad” which usually led to freedom. As well, many of the non-slave States had begun to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act.

With today’s government-induced slavery of dependency, where is the “railroad” that leads out? One obvious way is through education. However, in many places, a Black student who actually tries to get an education in those pits that are the inner city public schools, may well face more physical danger (from other Blacks) than that faced by a slave trying to leave a plantation.

Let the disagreement begin!

Troy L Robinson