Michael Parenti: 'Wealth Creates Poverty'

Source:Make It Emphatic- Michael Parenti talking about wealth and poverty.

"From a Michael Parenti Talk. Affluence Creates Poverty - Marshall McLuhan" 

From Make It Emphatic 

So in other words; for someone to have wealth and achieve some form of economic independence in society, someone else has to be poor. It's the old zero-sum game theory: for me to do well, you have to do poorly, because apparently the pot (or wealth) is not big enough for everyone to succeed. 

"In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a larger piece reduces the amount of cake available for others as much as it increases the amount available for that taker, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally.

In contrast, non-zero-sum describes a situation in which the interacting parties' aggregate gains and losses can be less than or more than zero. A zero-sum game is also called a strictly competitive game while non-zero-sum games can be either competitive or non-competitive. Zero-sum games are most often solved with the minimax theorem which is closely related to linear programming duality,[1] or with Nash equilibrium." 

From Wikipedia

Michael Parenti's zero-sum game theory, is traditional socialist thinking, that if you allow for people to do well, that's exactly what they will do, while others won't do as well. Which is called the marketplace. And then they blame the economically successful and advantaged, for having people in society that haven't done well. And completely throw personal responsibility out the window. 

Reason Magazine: 'Ending the Global Drug War: Voices from the Front Lines'

Source:Reason Magazine- covering the War on Drugs.

"Ever since the War on Drugs, everything has hit the fan," says Romesh Bhattacharji, former Narcotics Commissioner of India. Rather than continue the unnecessary and costly drug war, Bhattacharji advises the United States to simply "Relax, take it easy, [and] tolerate."

Last month, at the Cato Institute's "Ending the Global War on Drugs" conference, Bhattacharji's sentiments were echoed by ex-drug czars, cops, politicians, intellectuals, liberal and conservative journalists, and even the former President of Brazil. Reason.tv attended the event and spoke with a number of the featured speakers, including... 

From Reason Magazine

When people on the front line of the War on Drugs (the so-called drug Warriors) say that the War on Drugs is failing or failed, we should listen to these people because they are fighting the War on Drugs for us. They are our  so-called drug warriors who fight this failed war for us that was declared by President Nixon forty years ago. 

All we've gotten out of this so-called war is 1T$ spent and turning drug addicts into criminals and throwing people in prison for what they do to themselves. Even if they haven't hurt anyone else with what they are doing. Thats exactly what Big Government is about whether it comes from the Far-Left or Far- Right in the War on Drugs.

Big Government is about power, the Power of Government to be able to control how its own people live their lives. Some people especially on the Right who tend to be economic Libertarians, but not Libertarian on social issues, say Big Government is about money and it takes a lot of people's money away from them, for the government to control in order to control society and make people dependent on Big Government. But money is just the tool, a big tool but a tool to finance the power of Big Government. The War on Drugs case in point: it's all about power the power for Big Government to control how individuals live their own lives. 

Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- Susan Herman: 'Assassinations, Spying and The Constitution'

Source:Reason Magazine- ACLU President Susan Herman's book.

"All of our elected representatives have to hear from a broad cross section of liberals, libertarians, conservatives--people who just say, 'This is too much big government. We want our government back,'" says American Civil Liberties Union President Susan Herman, author of the new book "Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy."

How much has the police state expanded since 9/11, and is there any way to stop it? Herman sat down with Reason.tv Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie to discuss the this and other questions surrounding the state of liberty in America. Herman notes that while there have been a few minor changes in policy, for the most part there's been a remarkable continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in terms of their disregard for civil liberties. She makes the case that liberals must make alliances with libertarians and pro-liberty conservatives like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson if there's any hope of curbing the ever-expanding police state. 

She also discusses the recent assassination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki and the ACLU's role in representing Al-Awlaki's father in court." 

From Reason Magazine

The U.S Constitution is about individual liberty and preserving that and thats all. Everything in it is designed to protect our individual liberty. I mean it was written Liberals and Conservatives people who didn't like the United Kingdom and its authoritarian rule. And wanted the people to have the liberty to live their own lives and not be harassed by government and not be overtaxed. Another reason why the American rebels wanted t separate from the United Kingdom and form the United States. 

I believe the second best part of our U.S. Constitution after all the individual liberty and constitutional rights it guarantees, is how hard it is to amend it and take liberty away from the people. 2/3 vote in both chambers of Congress and then 2/3 vote in thirty four states and in their legislatures. 

Europe (to use as an example) they can amend their Constitution through (and this a technical term) by statue, meaning by law. Parliament passes a bill to amend the Constitution and then I believe the executive has to approve it and then passed passed again by Parliament. 

America is just not a comfortable political environment for Neoconservatives, Theocrats or Socialists. Because a lot of what they want to do, would be thrown out by the Supreme Court. Because it would be viewed as unconstitutional. Thats what you get when you have Liberals and Conservatives write a Constitution. 

So a lot of what these big government political factions that are sort of out but looking in at American power want to do is currently unconstitutional and for them to pass their agenda , they have to amend the Constitution with several amendments.

Justice Antonin Scalia who's not my favorite Justice on the Supreme Court, he's a Conservative and I'm a Liberal, but we do have some things in common and I have a lot of respect for Justice Scalia. Justice Stephen Breyer a Liberal is may favorite Supreme Court Justice, but when Justice Scalia says that the Constitution has been under attack, he's right in this sense, the last ten years the Federal Government has passed the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention of terrorists suspects with not trials, torture, the Constitution has been under attack by Neoconservatives like in the Bush Administration as well as in Congress. 

Theocrats and Socialists haven't been innocent here either. They just haven't had the power to get their policies enacted in law. Theocrats wanting to bring religion closer to the State. Socialists wanting the Federal Government to have more power over the economy. And take power away from the states.

Again, if you are a fan of individual liberty both economic freedom and civil liberties, then you love the U.S. Constitution, or you should at least check it out, because its an individualist document written by Liberals and Conservatives, big believers in individual liberty. Not written for collectivists or authoritarians.

Newt Gingrich: 'Art Laffer Praises Newt's Social Security Plan: Makes Perfect Sense'

Source:Newt Gingrich- Art Laffer talking to Fox News.

"In an interview on Fox, former Reagan economic advisor Art Laffer praised Newt's Social Security plan: "I do like it very much, and I think Newt is right on line with this one." 

From Newt Gingrich

I like any Social Security or pension reform plan that expands freedom of choice in how people can plan for their own retirement. As long as there's a floor of income that people could count on that under my plan would be 125% of the Federal poverty rate (or roughly 25K$ a year right now) so if people were to blow their retirement fund through bad investments or business deals, bad economy, whatever, they would at least have the Social Security minimum that they could count on. Which today is 14-15$ a year which to me seems way too low, thats only around 60% of the current poverty level. 

Some people rely on Social Security for all of their income and then have to rely on public assistance and private charity to make up the rest, get that up to around 25K$ a year and that would help take some of the strain off our public assistance and private charity. 

CATO Institute: Ben Friedman- 'Discusses Non-Interventionism in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Common Sense Society'

Source:CATO Institute- research fellow Ben Friedman.

"Ben Friedman discusses non-interventionism in U.S. foreign policy at the Common Sense Society" 

From the CATO Institute

One of the reasons why the United Kingdom and European Union as well as the Imperial Republic of Japan have such large welfare states (too put it simply) because they can afford to. But the better question is why do they have such large welfare states (compared with the United States) is because their defense budgets, are about 1/5 of ours as part of their GDPs. 

And a good question would be why is that, because not only are we responsible for the national defense of America, but I would argue North America as a whole, as well as Britain, Scandinavia, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Japan. All developed nations that have the resources to defend themselves, but American taxpayers spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to defend them. 

Government Gone Wild: 'Land of The Freebies, Home of The Brave'

Source:Government Gone Wild- who is this guy?

"Watch this SHOCK video about our government's "cradle to the grave" entitlement society! Become a "fan" on Facebook here:Facebook follow us on Twitter here:Twitter." 

From Government Gone Wild  

I don't love it, but find it hilarious when Socialists (people who call themselves Progressives) talk about all sorts of free programs and free government money, as if they're playing Monopoly or some video game or they have a personal printing press that prints counterfeit cash and they just give it away as if they're more generous than Santa Claus himself. I mean, do you they know anything about American government and economics? Did they take those classes in high school or at their fancy Northeast or West Coast colleges? Were those classes even available where they went to school?  

Without taxes, government would literally have to print and borrow every penny that they spend. Or have tariffs rates so high that no other country would want to invest here. Who pays the taxes? The people who receive those government services. And some might say that low-income people don't pay for their government programs as well. That's wrong as well: they pay for their programs by having to live in poverty every single day that they're eligible for those programs. 

If you want to give people government programs (with other people's money) have the decency and character to tell the people who are going to have to pay for them (the taxpayers) how much it's going to cost them. If you're tired of people hating politicians and politics, stop bullshitting them, regardless of your political party and philosophy. And then maybe some day they'll have more respect for you than the assholes who send them spam calls and emails. 

New American: 'Term Limits - A Threat to our Constitution'

Source:New American- The U.S. House of Representatives; the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress. Regardless of what the guy in this video says.

"This 1997 fact-filled presentation dispels any notion that good government can result from a game of musical chairs in government via term limits." 

From the New American

The main reason why I don't like term limits in Congress (even if they are generous) is because I don't like the idea of government limiting who we can vote for, as long as we meet basic qualifications: we are alive, free, American citizens, and meet the basic age requirement to run for office. 

The reason why term limits makes sense for executives, president's (I would add vice president's) governors , county executives, and mayors, is because there's a lot of power given to executives, individual power and you don't want them in Public Office indefinitely making decisions based on how to get reelected. But if you term limit executives, that gives them the political freedom, until their term is over, to make decisions that may not be popular, but may be the right thing to do. And of course they can make unpopular decisions that are the wrong thing to do, like pardoning murderers that are clearly guilty and that sort of thing.