Genesis of the "NO" Logo
In history there have been two basic forms of social organization: collectivism and individualism. In the 20th and 21st century, collective variations have included socialism, fascism, Nazism, and communism. Under collectivism, a ruling class of “intellectuals”, bureaucrats, politicians and/or social planners decides what people want or what is “good” for society and then uses the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax and redistribute wealth in an attempt to achieve their desired objectives. Individualism is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes individual liberty, belief in the primary importance of the individual and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence and responsibility. It embraces opposition to controls over the individual when exercised by the state. The Preamble to our Constitution makes it plain that all power rests originally with the people, as individuals.
The “O” within the circle represents collectivism in its various forms. The “N” represents an emphatic repudiation of collectivism. The red, white and blue circles encompassing the “NO” are emblematic of our Republic. It is the responsibility of the individuals in an engaged and enlightened republic to limit the influence of the government, especially one that attempts to wield power outside the boundaries delineated by the Constitution.
The Rule of Law is often overlooked and misunderstood when constitutional issues arise. A general misconception is a law is constitutional if; Congress passes a bill and the President signs the bill into law, or the Supreme Court of the United States upholds a laws constitutionality. Not only is this wrong, it is inherently dangerous to our constitutional republic, limited government and federalism, and the protection of mans' natural rights and liberty.
How does one acquire power in a country ruled by popular suffrage? By promising the electorate all their hearts desire and by being more profligate with promises than the opposition. Thus, socialism has become mere welfarism, and with welfarism comes control of the national economy. But, while Marxism aimed to control the economy for the purpose of destroying capitalism, modern socialism seems bent on controlling the economy for the sake of control; even advocating something called a "mixed" economy, partly free and partly controlled.
http://mises.org/daily/4932
Every American consumes an average of three gallons of oil a day. Republicans and Democrats call this reliance on oil an “addiction”—an irrational, self-destructive habit that must be broken as soon as possible. This year's BP oil spill disaster is only making the chorus to “end our addiction to oil” louder. But if we examine the most common arguments for this idea, we see that they are myths. Oil is a vital, viable, and desirable part of our energy future.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/29/myths-oil/#ixzz19bYjZSPV
"There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all."
-- Davy Crockett (1786-1836) American hunter, frontiersman, soldier and politician"A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness."
-- Walter Bagehot (1826-1877)
At the close of the 111th Congress, America is deeply in the bog of Thomas Jefferson’s prophetic warning: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
New year, new debt
Ethel C. Fenig
The departing 111th Congress left you and your descendants a Christmas gift unlike any other--a gift that will keep on taking from you long after the donors are gone. Debt. Massive debt reports Terence P. Jeffrey of CNS.
The federal government has accumulated more new debt--$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)-during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.
Adding the above new debt to the old debt
The total national debt of $13,858,529,371,601.09 (or $13.859 trillion), as recorded by the U.S. Treasury at the close of business on Dec. 22, now equals $44,886.57 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
And not so incidentally this last Congress, like the formerly highest debt ridden 110th, was controlled by Democrats in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
[T]he $3.22 trillion in new debt accumulated during the record-setting 111th Congress is more than three times the $1.054 trillion in new debt accumulated by the last Republican-majority Congress (the 109th) which adjourned on Dec. 8, 2006.
And a very happy, healthy (Obamacare begins to kicks in) and uhm debt free new year 2011 to you.
My indictment of big government is that it is bad because it attacks liberty, prosperity, progress, harmony, and morality. Thanks to big government, we have significantly less of all of those good things than we would if we had been able to keep government right-sized. Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/whats-so-bad-about-big-government-anyway/
In the coming new year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication....while the other involves a groundhog.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That was Karl Marx’s summary of communism, written back in the nineteenth century. Now, according to a recent Harris
poll, it turns out that 42 percent of Americans mistakenly believe those words are contained somewhere in America’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Read the 12/23/2010 posting from
http://blog.aynrandcenter.org/ .
Am I being paranoid or is this a legitimate concern? You will need to decide for
yourself. Get on YouTube and check out all the commentary. Below is a typical posting. 1984 revisited?