Stop SOPA and PIPA

As a creator of intellectual property theft and piracy does concern me; but as a creator of sometimes controversial content these bills frighten me to death. I’m often amazed at the clueless person in the media who decries the exercise of power by the government when men like Nixon (very NAZIesque in my opinion) Reagan, G H W Bush, and Bush the younger; yet they celebrate the increase of government power and interference in our lives by men like L B Johnson, J E Carter III, W J Clinton and their latest hero du jour Barak Hussein Obama. Government power is a corrupting influence no matter which party or person is wielding it! I refuse to believe that the choice we as humans have is between Stalin and Hitler; there must be an alternative to the bad ideas that both of these men put forth.

SOPA or PIPA is a bad idea, just as The Patriot Act was a bad idea. Bad ideas know no party affiliation. They can (and are) put forward by businesses (which despite the media [which is a BIG business] bias toward Obama's weilding of power) or government functionaries. It does not matter where (or what side of the political aisle) a bad idea comes from; all men who wish to be free resist such ideas.

Here is an article that says more and better than I could on this subject: http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jeffcarter/2012/01/19/stop_sopa_now_why_its_important_to_the_average_joe/page/full/ I suggest strongly that you read this article and consider the implications of this bad bill.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Lesson 56 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Men only dare greatly if they expect great rewards. The government that seeks to limit the size of reward that a man may hope for or expect is foolish at best and tyrannical at worst.

Some say that greed, or need is the mother of invention and I would have to say that the first is closest to the truth. That is because no matter how great the need of a people group is the only reason something new is attempted (which is the essence of invention) is if the person who is making the attempt believes he will reap some reward that he feels is adequate to his effort.

The only difficulty I have is in calling the self-interest that inspires invention greed. This is because I do not believe that wanting a better life in and of itself is a manifestation of greed. It seems to me that greed is when you try to prevent other people from having a better life. Or when you desire something and steal it rather than work for it.

The characterization of profit as evil is one of the many ways in which the lazy and greedy rulers of a society work to make it easier for them to steal from those who work and produce the good things they desire but do not wish to soil their hands with the production of.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Tough Times Ahead

I extracted the following quotes from this article. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2012/01/08/obama_fails_math_portion_of_presidency_test/page/full/ I believe that it is well worth your time to read but if you don’t feel like it then consider these words of wisdom.

"The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people." Andrew Mellon Secretary of Treasury for Warren Harding.

It seems to me that we would be very foolish not to look at history and see what has occurred at other times from the current era to the fall of the Roman Empire which can be traced back to policies that are very similar to those of the current president of the USA.

For wisdom let us look at someone from the party he says he represents though from another time: John Kennedy.

"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." John F. Kennedy

We are spending money we don’t have to make things better in the USA today. This is like a family maxing out all of its credit cards. The question remains this: What will happen when no other nation will lend us money? That I believe is a fearful day and fast approaching. Worse yet is the day when no one will accept our money, when it is viewed with the same disdain as the peso… indeed times are going to get tough.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Good Intentions

Good Intentions

Good intentions put no food on the table

Nor do they put money in the bank

Good intentions do no work

And good intentions save no lives

More often than not

Though many won’t admit

Good intentions lead to bad ends!

© 2012 Vic Jones

2012 Writing Challenge

Well for 2011 I missed my goal of posting at least one item per week here. Part of the reason for that is that for most of the year I was still posting at Author Nation with the hope that that site would help build this site as it was a social networking site as well as a writer’s forum of sorts.

I’m now fairly certain that Author Nation is defunct so that should provide me with a greater incentive to post here more frequently. There has been one other thing that has held me up as well. That is the fact that The Hard Knocks School of Life is proving harder to do than I thought it would be. Not to write the items, as I have some 600 of them, but rather to expand upon them. This is due to the fact that a great many of the pieces of The Hard Knocks School of life are only a few words long. And while I feel that a lot of them are perfectly fine at that length I’ve felt that posting a 5 or 10 word bit once a week was a bit on the weak side when it came to writing.

© 2012 Vic Jones