Gun Bans are the Instruments of Tyrants

If you don’t believe the title of this article then you should learn history. After all a careful search of history will bear this out as the following quote from the socialist dictator Adolf Hitler shows. This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future.” —Adolf Hitler, 1935

I’m certain that more research into gun control laws on a world-wide basis would reveal that more tyrants than Hitler used this method to obtain total control of their nation. I know that the people of the Soviet Union were not permitted to have guns. Nor were the people of Mao's China. In England right now they are experiencing riots because gentlemen are no longer armed. And one very effective tool of the would be tyrant is to allow chaos to reign until the people demand that something, anything be done to restore order to the society.

I also note this for consideration here: In our prisons all weapons are supposed to be in the hands of the guards yet hardly a day goes by (I’d guess that in aggregate no day goes by) without someone (including an occasional guard) being stabbed. This of course does not include the fact that some prisoners will be beaten by others with fists or feet! Thus in the most controlled society that we have we see the presence of weapons and violence without weapons. Therefore we can draw the conclusion that it is not the weapons that are the cause of the violence but rather the minds of men.

If you are a woman you should be even more up in arms against any attempt to disarm you. After all the greatest indicator that you will not be raped is your ability to defend yourself. And ladies, a black-belt rarely trumps a weapon of any sort not even a knife.

Of course there are lots of laws regarding the size and type of knife you may carry as well all of which make committing a mugging easier. Or a home invasion less risky to the criminal. I join many who ask why it is that after a shooting spree by someone we want to blame the gun (which has no feet) for the mayhem caused by the deranged mind that chose to make his fellow man an object of prey.

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.”
—William S. Burroughs

Lesson 59 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Since jealousy and greed are related closely, jealousy must obviously be a source or root of evil.

I am not so much interested in defining evil as identifying the cause of evil, these I have boiled down to greed, envy and jealousy. Indeed I believe that envy and jealousy are actually aspects of greed. Behind any behavior that could possibly be considered evil is the root of greed and its expression as naked greed, or greed disguised as envy or jealousy.

Sometimes of course greed is difficult to identify, for example when many people (including BHO in my humble opinion) start to talk about giving to the poor they rarely intend that they should give to the poor but are somewhat more like Judas Iscariot who had his hand in the money bag of Jesus. I say that even if they may not be stealing money for their own enrichment, for when they use the power of the government to take money from one person to give to another in order to appear to be generous they at minimum steal the accolade that would go with such a gift if they had not stepped between the ‘donor’ and the ‘recipient.’

However since BHO is running the money through the government chances are that at more than one level there are people who are diverting some of it to their own enrichment. This is on top of the fact that government ‘charity’ rarely does anything other than to increase the dependency of its recipient. While the increasing control this gives stokes the appetite of the government for ever greater power (which is one objective of some strains of greed) over all aspects of life.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Lesson 57 from the Hard Knocks School of Life

Socialism (or communism) seems to me to be systems of government based on greed and fueled by envy.

Communism and its child/sibling socialism are philosophies that are often hard to discuss rationally because people get heavily emotionally involved in these belief systems. Perhaps the reason for this is that so many people have invested their ‘treasure’ both in worldly goods and belief in these ideas and if anyone refutes these ideas they are devaluing the treasure that has been invested in them.

Yet when one takes the time to examine the idea that everyone should have the same stuff, (goods and services) without all of the emotional baggage, it becomes very evident that communism is childish or infantile at best and evil at worst. The reason for this is that not everyone wants, or needs, or deserves the same things in life. For very young children it may only seem fair that Johnny doesn’t have a cookie when Timmy doesn’t have a cookie. But adults can easily understand that if John works every day he has the goods and services he earns while if Tim refuses (not cannot) to work then he should likewise have what he has earned which is poverty.

© 2012 Vic Jones

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

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

Lesson 54 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. Abraham Lincoln

Let us paraphrase this for the modern era: Let not the poor man steal (whether with his own hand or by government action) from the rich but rather let him learn to become rich and build his own wealth thereby assuring that his wealth will be safe from the greed of other men.

Greed is without a doubt at the heart of wishing to have what you desire without work. But greed always leads to everyone having less goods and less security.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 52 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Today’s lesson is a quote from Ayn Rand the author of Atlas Shrugged. “One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” —Ayn Rand, 1975

My first question on seeing this quote is: What is a Statist? A Statist is a person who invests the state (government) with the ability to answer all of life’s questions and needs. A person who believes this way is worshiping a false god of course but since the state has become their god you cannot do much to persuade them away from investing all of their effort into it.

In the modern era it is wise for us to remember that the statist will do his (her) best to destroy anyone who even begins to shake their faith.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 49 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If you can't enforce the law then it is nothing more than empty words.

I suppose that the easy thing to say about this statement is that it should need no further explanation. It seems (at least to me) to be complete without adding to it. That does not mean that there are not other principles that cannot be obtained from it nor that there are not questions that must be asked if this principle is true. The first of those questions is this: When has the law become so complex that it is impossible to know or enforce?

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 45 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

The only way that everyone can (or will) have the same amount of goods and services is if no one has any goods or services.

Of course even in the most aggressively socialistic or communistic countries it is evident that not everyone has the same things or the same services rendered to them. For example consider North Korea. Most of the population of North Korea lives in abject poverty while the ruler of the country (an absolute dictator) lives in luxury that would embarrass anyone with a sense of morality. The same can be seen in Cuba where the Castro brothers have lived in luxury while their people starved. Thus when anyone puts forth the idea that fairness consists of everyone having the same amount of goods and services it is well to ask whether he is willing to divest himself of his goods so that he can live up to his rhetoric.

© 2011 Vic Jones

6000000 tax payers?

P. Obama has defined rich as making more than 250,000 dollars. So with that in mind I did a little research and found that about 2% of people filing income tax paperwork made over this amount. Therefore if (and trust me this is not true) every person filed an income tax return the number of persons making more than 250,000 dollars in the USA would be around 6,000,000 (this assumes 300,000,000 population). But a great number of people file jointly (I didn’t look up this statistic) and a certain number of people are exempt from filing as well as a certain number who will not file for other reasons.
Therefore we must ask a serious question: what sort of person would in essence destroy (because the end result of taxation is destruction) a resource like people who are ambitious enough to make an income that is higher than others?

Some have suggested that P. Obama is incompetent. I think this is untrue, he has said he will fundamentally transform the USA. All of his activities seem to be trending in that direction with no fumbles at all. So no I do not think he is incompetent. Anything he does that is destructive to the USA is deliberate.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Income Problems or Spending Problems

I’ve heard several senators express the idea that the USA has an income problem. IE we have made commitments ([by senators] to spend money that we didn’t have [to buy votes]) that we cannot fail to meet. However I am quite old enough to recall the peanut man JECIII and remember that he too had a problem of encroaching inflation… the current administration has learned to cook the books and not report inflation (although anyone who has visited the grocery store or a gas station lately knows better) or worse yet stagflation (this is where normal investments such as houses go down in value while the necessities of life increase in price) which is happening. I would say that my personal misery index meter is beginning to show yellow and for a lot of people it is showing red! However this does not address the issue of whether or not the USA has an income problem it just indicates that we have a priority problem. The government has printed money to try to cover some of its obligations and this money has in essence driven up the price of survival.
So supposing we actually had an income problem (which we do not) the next question would be how should this problem be addressed? Many senators insist that taxes must be raised to increase the income of the USA yet in all of the world I know of no enterprise (including government) that can increase its prices and actually increase its income. In fact the most one of the most successful (profitable or highest income) businesses in the world is Wal-mart www.walmart.com/ and their motto is lower prices always.

Therefore the only reason to raise taxes that I can see is for the government to either punish activity that it believes is bad or reward activity that the powers that be regard as good.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Budget Woes

P. Obama and his cronies in the senate have sent a budget to the people demanding that they be permitted to spend 20% more this year than they did last year. Then when the house which represents the people tells him that he can only spend 10% more than last year he throws a fit like a two year old denied a candy bar. I truly think both he and congress need a reality check. Let me explain a true budget cut. I have had a 20% reduction in actual income, not in projected income. This is a budget cut; not what P. Obama and Harry Reid are complaining about. Reality would demand that the government not spend more than 10% of the GDP and that they cease from taking money from those who earn it to give to those who refuse to work.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Liberty or slavery

Defunding Obama care is about liberty therefore I strongly support the effort to defund it one address for people involved in this effort is here: http://getlibertynow.org/alg/defundpetition2.aspx?pid=l1j I hope any of my readers will understand that you cannot demand something (whether goods or services) for free and maintian a free society.
(c) 2011 Vic Jones

Further Thoughts on Education

I’ve continued to listen to P. Obama talk about education and say that we cannot afford to not invest in education. I think that today’s column by Chuck Norris gives lie to everything that the president says about education. I suggest that you go here http://townhall.com/columnists/chucknorris/2011/03/01/stalin-style_us_public_education/page/full/ and read what Chuck Norris has to say. If we cannot pay the best teachers according to their achievements and rid ourselves of the bad teachers and pay the mediocre ones as they deserve according to their accomplishments then we have no real hope of educating our children to compete in the world. And if we spend money without hope of some return then we might as well set fire to it or pour it down a rat hole.
© 2011 Vic Jones

Students treated like prisoners in LA

Is Los Angeles taking the lead in treating children like prisoners? The reason I ask this is that I’m listening to a radio show Dennis Prager at http://www.krla870.com/ on the internet and they are reporting that in LA the schools want to fit their students with GPS devices to enforce attendance. My first reaction to this is that this is a horrid extension of government. First schools should be places children are enthusiastic about going. If they are not places where children want to go then there is something desperately wrong and there must be a change made in what is being done in schools so far as the instruction program.
© 2011 Vic Jones

Struggling

I’m still struggling with the concept that there is anything that is necessary and at the same time evil. My conclusion is yes there is and the best example I can come up with is still a government or government generically.
I’m sure you are asking how this can be possible. In order to understand that government is evil and yet necessary you have to accept the position that mankind is evil. That in general and generically we all tend toward doing things that are evil. Once you accept that and accept that government (which is made up of people) is evil as well but necessary to curtail the tendency of people to be evil then you can begin to accept that government is a necessary evil.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 31 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Government is a necessary evil; therefore it behooves men who wish to be free to make sure that government stays as small and as weak as possible. T. Jefferson
I’m not sure if this is an actual quote or a paraphrase of Thomas Jefferson, but I am sure that it correctly reflects his sentiments with regard to government. Government is necessary to maintain civil order but the larger the government gets the less responsive it is to the needs of the people.

Indeed for a government to be ‘good’ it must be small, transparent, and essentially dependent on the people in order to carry out its legitimate functions of keeping the peace and guarding the borders.

I’m also fairly certain that all of the founding fathers of the USA would be aghast at giant corporations like GM, Google, GE, et al.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 25 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If someone says he wants to punish the rich because they are greedy you should ask what that person has to gain in the transaction they propose. You also should ask yourself if the person proposing to punish the rich is actually greedy…
People who are earning high incomes are called rich by our current government yet they may or may not have actually accumulated much wealth. Conversely many people who have much wealth (either inherited or accumulated) often have low incomes (or at least low earned incomes) because they have most of their assets stored in government preferred investments whether they be municipal bonds or T-bills or some project the government wants accomplished.

High income earners are the achievers of society and punishing (or taxing them) is like making fun of nerds in school.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 23 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If you want to help someone you need to be sure that what you do for, or to them doesn’t hurt them.
Is it possible to harm someone when you intend to help them? Absolutely! So then you ask: how is this possible? Suppose a parent wishing to protect their child keeps him in a padded cage and carries him everywhere the child wants to go; will the child not be crippled despite the parent’s intention to help the child? And what of the man who is given a fish by the government; is he not harmed as well? Yet the intention is that he not be hungry.

© 2010 Vic Jones

FUCKED

Wham bam thank you ma’am,

Fucked up the arse again,

’Tis a new law,

Made in haste,

’Cause it’s an emergency,

Never mind that the old laws aren’t bein’ enforced,

We just gotta pass some more laws,

To make sure all the people are confused,

And so the advent of a tyrant!

© 2010 Vic Jones