Sunday, July 05, 2009

Drug Deaths - Fighting the Wrong “Drug War”

Marijuana is vilified by the State, and for what reason?  Is it dangerous?  I do not think so, but do not let me convince you of this, let’s look to the FDA and the records they compile on drug deaths.

The following data has been compiled by ProCon.org and was received from the FDA after filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

Deaths from Marijuana v. 17 FDA-Approved Drugs - (Jan. 1, 1997 to June 30, 2005)

“Total deaths from marijuana:  0”
“Total deaths from 17 FDA approved drugs:  11,687”

Via J. Orlin Grabbe, who is no longer with us physically, but his spirit lives on.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/05 at 10:25 AM
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Jim Brown Decrees, You’re Not Altruistic Enough, Tiger Woods

When, exactly, did Jim Brown, or any other individual for that matter, garner the authority to direct how Tiger Woods, or any other private individual, should live their personal lives?

In a piece written by AP sports writer Tim Dahlberg titled Should Tiger save the world or just save par?, Brown is quoted as follows.

What Brown doesn’t appreciate is that Woods doesn’t seem to be burdened by much of a social conscience. He thinks Woods should be doing more—far more— than just playing golf and making money.

He believes that Woods’ quest for greatness comes with a responsibility the greats take on.

“You know what’s so interesting about Tiger to me?” Brown said. “He is a killer, he will run over you. … But as an individual for social change? Terrible. Terrible. Because he can get away with teaching kids to play golf, and that’s his contribution.”

Brown continues, alluding to another famous black athlete whose “social conscience” Brown believes should be prodded into more extravagant altruism.

Brown made the comments last week on HBO’s “Real Sports,” and Woods wasn’t his only target. He didn’t name the other, but you can be pretty sure his initials are MJ and he used to play basketball for the Chicago Bulls.

“There are one or two individuals in this country that are black that have been put in front of us as an example,” he told host Bryant Gumbel. “But they’re basically under a system that says, hey, they’re not going to deal with certain things. Yes, that disappoints me because I know they both know better.”

Wahlberg evidently takes the side of Brown, in his commentary on Woods and Michael Jordan, as is evidenced in Wahlberg’s worded jabs at these two giant athletes.

But the urgency felt by a black man from a generation that grew up being forced to use separate drinking fountains and ride in the back of the bus throughout the South to speak out about change isn’t felt by a black man whose devotion to golf is matched seemingly only by his devotion to make as much money as humanly possible.

Indeed, with a person of mixed heritage much like himself running for president, Woods wouldn’t even publicly endorse Barack Obama. He never gave his reasons—who knows, he might have liked John McCain—but the fact Buick was paying him $8 million a year and Republicans tend to buy Buicks might have something to do with it.

Jordan had a similar reaction when asked to intervene with a photo op on behalf of a black Senate candidate in North Carolina in the 1990s. He declined, saying “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

Brown’s pronouncements regarding private individuals’ “social conscience,” or alleged lack thereof, are symptomatic of the decline of the freedom with which Americans’ used to live their lives.  The State has many willing partners to spread their ideological, wealth distributive message, which is meant to shame you for personal, individual success.  It’s sacrifice the State desires, in the pejorative sense, and you’re the fatted calf.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/05 at 08:28 AM
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Self Flagellation at the Point of a Gun

I’ve posted in regards to the marijuana charges against David Mayo on a number of occasions.  Most recently, I had noted that Mayo was going to fight the charges against himself at trial, but that changed within a matter of three days, and Mayo copped a plea.

In today’s Grand Rapids Press, front page and center, David Mayo performs an act of contritionary self flagellation which hits all the right notes for the armed audience which is the State.  His self flagellating “confession” is headlined Grand Rapids Press sports columnist David Mayo says ‘I’ve come out on the other side’ after marijuana conviction.

Mayo writes, among other things, the following.

I have learned I am not physically addicted to anything but am predisposed to all manner of mental addictions, dating to childhood…I was just addicted to language…I was just addicted to sports.

I suppose, if an individual is predisposed to swallowing the propaganda churned out by the State regarding marijuana, Mayo’s words will be embraced with all the joy of a prodigal son’s return, and his self flagellating obeisance, going all the way back to his childhood, follows the script utilized in many defense arguments where the fault lies in not having shoes as a kid, or having been spanked ten times, or some other “tragic” circumstance, rather than personal responsibility.

Mayo accepts personal responsibility, but I think his front page self flagellation and his attending Narcotics Anonymous have been coerced at the point of the State’s gun.

Here is a man who has been a sports journalist for twenty-four (24) years for the same newspaper.  Evidently a dependable and productive employee.  A man who may have enjoyed smoking marijuana from time to time, how terrible, who now carries the State label of “felon,” and who has been forced to grovel for his life and livelihood and for what?  For the good of society?

Mayo’s self flagellating mea culpa is the culmination of the injustice inflicted by the State, and it all started with the State’s questionable procuring of purchase invoices for hydroponic growing equipment, which sets a precedence for the State to obtain records of your individual purchases, whether those purchases are benign or not.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/05 at 07:28 AM
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Saturday, July 04, 2009

Choosing to be American

Francis Luong speaks to what it means to be an American.  His lineage may be Vietnamese, but there is no doubt in my mind that Francis is an American.

In the year 2009, I feel more culturally American than I have ever felt at any other time in my life. Why is that? I read Atlas Shrugged back in 2007 and it sparked a long study of Reason, Egoism, and Capitalism until I could understand and explain the reasons for my philosophical views. I own my identity as a cultural American because I am devoted to the only social concept that made America possible, which incidentally is not democracy, but is Individual Rights…

What is my purpose in writing this post? Partly, it is to celebrate the nation that is my home not just because it is my home but because of the central idea behind it. I am proud of American cultural identity because at its core, it is the country that best embodies the moral right to rational self-interest. It is ideology that makes a culture rich, which is why I think that defining a culture on food and traditional practice is to define a culture on non-essentials. America *is* culturally rich, and every time another country grows economically prosperous by freeing their people to act for their own gain they reaffirm this principle.

His piece is titled Celebrate Your Independence By Choosing To Read Atlas Shrugged.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 03:53 PM
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I Hear There May Be a Revolution

Will Amerika become American, again, via a revolution?  I do not know the answer to this question, but I do think that a slow burning fuse has been lit.

Read what Scott Wagner, a Police Academy Commander and Professor at Columbus State Community College in Columbus Ohio, and a current Deputy Sheriff, has to say about this subject in a Pat Dollard blog post titled Note From A Cop.  From the post.

Which leads me to the third fear, that there is a revolution coming, yes, a revolution on the scale of the original American Revolution. You can hear this topic discussed on many of the talk radio shows by even the big name hosts. The possibility of an armed revolution against the U.S. government being discussed, albeit very gingerly and fleetingly and as something to be avoided, which it is. I never heard this mentioned in the 90s. One of my quietest, low profile officer friends brought it up the other day.

He said that at some point in the near future, he felt there is going to be an armed revolt if things keep going the way they are. Something has got to give…

Via David Codrea’s blog The War on Guns.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 03:16 PM
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Want Your Liberty Back? - Redux

Originally I posted this on August 31, 2004.  It is just as, if not more, pertinent today.  I Gave Up a Little Liberty.

The piece was written by Hugh Emerson in 1998.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 02:25 PM
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Whither Your Independence?

Brad Warbiany in a piece at The Liberty Papers titled Independence 1776. Independence 201x?

The time between the Stamp Act and the Treaty of Paris was 18 years. Between the Stamp Act and the Declaration of Independence, it was only the efforts of those who were willing to call the actions of their government deplorable that ensured that the yoke of that government would be lifted. It is now time for those of us who love our country and despise the United States Government to stand up and do the same. The American people are an industrious people, and often have little time to devote to paying attention to the actions of our government. They have a media more focused on the daily lives of TV celebrities than the outcome of legislation that will affect everyone’s daily life. They have been educated quite literally by the state to see the United States Government as a trusted friend and helpful assistant. This must change, and it is the work of those of us who believe in liberty to keep the fires stoked and educate them to the truth. This is not going to be a small job, and won’t happen quickly. But if we do not continually work towards this goal, we are resigning ourselves to a future led by a government by the power brokers, of the power brokers, and for the power brokers.

Today is a remembrance of America’s Independence Day. It is also a day to remember that committed citizens, in the cause of freedom, can break the chains of the greatest superpower seen on earth and claim their rightful liberty. It is a day to remember and celebrate those who did it before, but it’s also a day to steel yourself — there’s work to be done again.

Via Google News.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 02:17 PM
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Remember THE Declaration of Independence?

From a piece at American Thinker written by Bruce Walker titled Remembering What the Declaration of Independence is Not.

It was not a poll-driven summation of current opinion.  The men who gathered in Philadelphia did respect each other’s talents and knowledge, but the document they signed was not not driven by the latest Gallup or Zogby poll results.  What was right and true was not dependent upon popular opinion.

The signers did not even seek a vote of the people.  No referendum was necessary for the Declaration of Independence and it might well have failed in some of the colonies.  The “will of the people,” so precious to demagogues, did not determine what was right and true.  The people can fall for Hitler, adore Obama, and be enchanted by silly or wicked men.  The purpose of government, as the Declaration clearly states, is to secure liberty and not to implement that dubious, inconstant sentiment “the will of the people.”

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence represented the absolute opposite of “interest group politics” so slavishly worshipped in political science departments… (bold by ed.)

Read the whole thing.

Via Thunder Tales.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 11:31 AM
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Spirit of Dependence

Barack Obama’s “Independence” Day speech makes one, and one only, mention of independence, a sort of casual nod to the fact that America was founded to advance the freedom of the individual.

The remainder of Obama’s speech then attempts to twist Americans’ desire for freedom, individual independence, and their “unyielding spirit” into a pitch for a more tyrannical form of government which controls what energy can be developed or used by free indviduals, for more governmental control of schools,  and health care, a pitch to increase the scope of control with which the government burdens Americans.

Pathetic.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/04 at 08:32 AM
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Slumming It In Private Schools

Here in the United States of America, Americans are constantly bombarded with the message that the failure of students in the public schools is a lack of money, or that if the State did not provide free public education, America would be filled with stupid people.  But is there actually any truth to that?  I do not think so, but the message has been so ingrained into the public conscious, attempts to break from the public education system via charter schools, or school vouchers, are met with the full force of the teachers’ unions opprobrium, including withholding of campaign funds for the candidate of the day.

But there are lessons Americans can learn from some of the poorest of the poor, the slum dwellers.

In slums around the world, from Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya to rural villages in Ghana and China and places in between, Tooley has discovered poor people opening small private schools that offer alternatives to dismal or inaccessible public education. The schools charge only pennies a day, and most also provide scholarships to orphans or children of the indigent. One in five students in the Hyderabad slums, for example, attends a private school on some kind of need-based scholarship. Whether in Kibera (Kenya) or Gansu (China), these schools all seem to boast committed and punctual teachers, efficient and attentive owners, and satisfied parents.

Tooley visited numerous public schools in these far-flung places as well, and they also share certain traits: a dearth of discipline; teacher complacency; and classes in which students sit and chat instead of learning. Development experts readily acknowledge the shortcomings of public schools in less-wealthy nations. But Tooley expresses bafflement at their proposed remedies—more regulation, more money, better teaching training—especially when impoverished communities have already improvised and created their own successful alternatives.

Just how successful? Do pupils in private schools for the poor actually learn more than those in public schools? To find out, Tooley assembled and trained research teams that eventually tested 24,000 fourth-graders from impoverished areas who attended a range of schools—private schools recognized by the local government, private schools not so recognized, and public schools—in India, Nigeria, Ghana, and China. His findings are stunning:

The results from Delhi were typical. In mathematics, mean scores of children in government schools were 24.5 percent, whereas they were 42.1 percent in private unrecognized schools and 43.9 percent in private recognized. That is, children in unrecognized private schools scored nearly 18 percentage points more in math than children in government schools (a 72 percent advantage!), while children in recognized private schools scored over 19 percentage points more than children in government schools (a 79 percent advantage).

Redistributed money is not the answer.  Privatization is the key to knowledge.

From a City Journal piece titled The Private Schools No One Sees, which is a short review of a book written by James Tooley titled The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves, which is indeed worth a read.

Indeed it sounds beautiful.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 06:24 PM
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No, It’s That Simple

Ed Rasimus has read the article Drudge links to under the headline Feds Hunt For Guns, One House At A Time and provides the answer to the State’s hooligans knock on the door.

Remember, the answer at the door is “NO!”

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 11:16 AM
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Mortgage Redefaults

If you type mortgage modification into the Google news search engine, you currently receive six hundred and forty-five (645) possible news links to peruse.  Some, trumpet large numbers of mortgage modifications completed, while others warn of possible fraud, or the impossibility of having a mortgage modification completed due to “paper jams” or what not.

Tim Cavanaugh, at Hit & Run, notes that a very large percentage (any where between 46% and 64%) of these modified mortgages are ending right back where they started.  In default.

In general, the more loans you modify, the higher the percentage of redefaults: In the first quarter of 2008, 68,001 loans were modified, and 40,206, or 59 percent, of those have ended up 30 days late again, or worse. In the first quarter of 2009, 185,156 loan mods were done, and of those, 120,067, or 64 percent, ended up in trouble. (Check my math: to get a total-in-trouble number I’m adding up “30-59 days Delinquent,” “60 or More Days Delinquent,” “In Process of Foreclosure,” and “Completed Foreclosure.” To be sporting, I’m leaving “Short Sale or Deed-in-Lieu of Foreclosure” out.)

Cavanuagh’s post on this subject is titled Deadbeat: Not Just A Circumstance, A State of Mind and it provides links to all the pertinent data on this subject.

Everything’s going so well, isn’t it?

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 10:48 AM
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It Happens In All Ponzi Schemes

All ponzi schemes crash, at one point or another, when the suckers are either all tapped out, or new suckers cannot be induced to fall for the utopian pitch of never ending returns.  The great ponzi scheme, which is the federal government, may be suffering from just such an eventuality.

As we near the end of June, which is supposed to be one of the four biggest months for federal tax collections (January, April, and September are the others), it is clear that the serious receipts shortfalls are not only continuing, but have caused the March 20 projections of the administration and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to be outdated.

Unfortunately, for Americans, the State has warehouses of smoke and mirrors, and a monopoly on force, which the State will use indiscriminately to maintain their illusion of beneficience and liquidity.

June Federal Receipts: The Dive Continues, As Does Media Near Silence

Via The New Clarion, in a post titled Going Galt?.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 08:04 AM
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A Real Independence Day Message to the State

Bill St. Clair notes that Larken Rose will be speaking at a tea party in Philadelphia on July 4.  Rose is preambling his speech online with a piece titled You’re Not the Boss of Me! from which I’ve gleaned the most salient point.

“Dear Federal Government, you’re fired! We’re not paying your taxes anymore, not obeying your laws ever again, and from now on we will resist your thugs when you try to enforce your will on us.”

Unfortunately, as Rose notes,

How many Americans would dare to even THINK such a thing, much less say it out loud, or write it down and send it to the feds? Very few, indeed. The truth is, the spirit of resistance is all but dead in this country. Even among those in the pro-freedom movement, the vast majority of efforts revolve around begging the masters to be nice, petitioning for or against this or that legislation, arguing over WHICH politician should run our lives and take our money.

“very few, indeed,” would be so bold as to make such a statement.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 07:21 AM
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Earn It

In a post titled Civil Frights, Scooter Oi comments on the State’s forcing financial institutions to lend.

I’m trying to figure out when credit became a civil right.

I was taught that credit was something that one acquired after years of hard work, saving money and being financially responsible. When you had accomplished all that to the satisfaction of a bank, they would give you a credit card. If you didn’t screw that up after a while, them might give you a car loan. If you paid that off in good order, you might be able to qualify for a loan for a house…

Getting a loan for something you can’t afford is not a right…

Posted by John Venlet on 07/01 at 07:15 AM
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