Conservatives won’t give us smoking ban reprieve…

At least, that’s what they seem to be saying this week, as Dick Puddlecote chronicles…

Fortunately, the Tories are acutely aware that 52 pubs per week are closing, considering the fact that two thirds of Tories voted against the smoking ban that killed them. A party that wishes to enhance property rights, personal responsibility and defend the business owner’s freedom to be self-determinant, are definitely going to do something about it, aren’t they?
Course they fucking are – not.

"Mr Simmonds [Tory shadow minister for health] agreed with Mr Clark that the smoking ban is merely pushing the problem into people’s homes or onto the streets, but said it is a law that no Government would overthrow."

Staggering, ain’t it?

It should be staggering, but I’m not in the slightest bit surprised. Smokers have lost the battle, and the Tories are going to pick up, and run with, the righteous playbook in attacking drinkers. Not problem drinkers or antisocial drinkers. Well, actually, yes antisocial drinkers. Know why? Because denormalisation is succeeding in reframing all drinkers as antisocial.

I’m absolutely not going to be voting Tory at the next election.

AJ

House Speaker Rosa Klebb Doubles Down On Bat Shit Crazy With VAT

This bitch is entirely ’round the bend. First she and Blofeld Waxman bribe the entire House to cram through the Thermageddon bill, which taxes every form of production, at every stage, because they falsely claim it will reduce CO2–which isn’t warming the planet anyway.

Now she wants a Value Added Tax, which taxes every form of production, at every stage–to pay for the unaffordable free government healthcare that 53 percent of the country doesn’t want.

“In the scheme of things, I think it’s fair look at a value-added tax as well.” (Emphasis mine)

Will no one rid us of this rancid crone and her absolute lunacy?

Disobey.

From Charles Featherstone on LewRockwell.com:

Essayist and humorist Corey Ford wrote this about Prohibition (the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution) in Vanity Fair in 1930:

Drink what you please, when you please. Urge others to drink. Don’t betray the bootleggers who are smuggling liquor for you. In every way possible flaunt your defiance of the Eighteenth Amendment. Render it inoperative; ignore it, abrogate it, wipe it out. While it stands there, let it be disobeyed.

via On Obeying the Law (and the Constitution) « LewRockwell.com Blog.

Redistribution of Wealth

More from The 5000 Year Leap…

Redistribution of the Wealth Unconstitutional

In earlier years the American courts held that the expropriating of property to transfer to other citizens was unlawful, being completely outside the constitutional power delegated to the government.  It was not until after 1936 (the Butler case) that the Supreme Court began arbitrarily distorting the meaning of the “general welfare” clause to permit the distribution of federal bounties as a demonstration of “concern” for the poor and the needy.  Before that time, this practice was prohibited.  The Supreme Court had declared:

No man would become  a member of a community in which he could not enjoy the fruits of his honest labor and industry.  The preservation of property, then, is a primary object of the social compact…The legislature, therefore, had no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vesting it in another, without a just compensation.  It is inconsistent with the principles of reason, justice, and moral rectitude; it is incompatible with the comfort, peace and happiness of mankind; it is contrary to the principles of social alliance in every free government; and lastly, IT IS CONTRARY TO THE LETTER AND SPIRIT OF THE CONSTITUTION. (2 Dall 304, 310 [Pa. 1795]; emphasis added.)

Caring for the Poor Without Violating Property Rights

But, of course, the nagging question still remains.  If it corrupts a society for the government to take care of the poor by violating the principle of property rights, who will take care of the poor?  The answer of those who built America seems to be: “Anybody BUT the federal government.”

Americans have never tolerated the suffering and starvation which have plagued the rest of the world, but until the present generation help was given almost exclusively by the private sector or on the community or state level.  President Grover Cleveland vetoed legislation in his day designed to spend federal taxes for private welfare problems.  He wrote:

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be in no manner properly related to the  public service or benefit.  A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated.  Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood. (”Why the President Said No,” in Essays on Liberty, 12 vols. [Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economics Education, INc., 1952-65], 3:255; emphasis added.)

I think the Founders were very smart…would that our leaders of today were.

We need a dictator

Democracy is great. Capitalism is fun. But maybe it’s time we thought about where this organic approach to freedom is taking us.

There’s no debating that we are entirely wreaking this planet; and as much as people want to tell you that YOU make the difference every time you turn the tap off while shaving or half flush when you pee, it’s mostly bullshit. We need change, but we need it on a massive scale. We’ve depended on common sense long enough and need something harsher.

Now I’m nowhere close to a supporter of a police state. I hate being treated like a criminal at every airport check; detest censorship and bans on absolutely anything and think people should be absolutely free in the choices you make. Hank Moody said it right on Californication, although it’s probably been said before:

There is no right or wrong; just the consequences of your actions.

That being said, on matters that are of the scale of the destruction of the planet, I’d say we deserve to be treated fairly harshly. Prices on water, electricity and fuel usage should be exponential, and should pay for the development of all the alternate sources science is looking into. You use more than you need, and you should pay through the nose. Tax the manufacturing of paper, and use it to plant trees. This isn’t something we can handle in little changes: the scale is far to big. We need to realise people are expendable, but the planet isn’t.

Severn Suzuki makes decent points in a 6 minute speech, people applaud, and then ignore it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ODrjr09I0

Let me however end my rant with the idea that all this is bullshit and ignorable if we colonise another planet and move out. Prove Agent Smith right and do the virus thing. Put more money into space travel and finding a habitable planet. Then we can hopefully start over.

New York Mom Fights Middle School That Banned Her Bike Rides With Son

A New York mother is fighting back against her school district after administrators and officials told her she and her son didn’t have the right to bike to school together — and that his safety, even beyond school walls, was out of her hands.

via New York Mom Fights Middle School That Banned Her Bike Rides With Son – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com.

Like most things, the “details” of this case are not entirely open and shut, but focus on the phrase, “she and her son didn’t have the right to bike to school together”.

Arguably, we are not born with a right to bike to school, but individuals in this country are constitutionally guaranteed the right of liberty.  If she and her son choose to ride their bikes to and from school it should be none of my business, your business, the school’s business, or the state’s business.

I can only hope that the ridiculousness of “laws” like these that begin to show the futility of our government running a public option for health care.

Swine flu shot protests may be the next Tea Party

Published Wednesday, September 30 2009

If Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente is right another volley may have been fired in what he is calling the “Second American Revolution.”

In August while most everyone’s attention was still focused on the Tea Parties, Celente was already in fast-forward trend identification mode.

Here’s part of an e-mail trend alert he sent to clients, “While there are many wild cards that could light the fuse, The Trends Research Institute forecasts that if the threat of government-forced Swine Flu vaccinations is realized, it will be the fourth shot (of the second American Revolution). Tens of millions will fight for their right to remain free and unvaccinated.”
Read the full article