On The Table

“The business climate in California is just not conducive to maintaining current business levels much less talking about expanding,” said Lisa McCabe, Bullhead Regional Economic Development Authority president.

 “The taxes, the workman’s comp insurance, just the sheer volume of regulations that are being imposed upon the businesses is putting a stranglehold on them.”

 Quality jobs and capital investment qualify for incentives from the city of Bullhead City, McCabe says.

 “Anything to stimulate the economy and get the area growing again.”

 City Manager Toby Cotter “has told me anything and everything is on the table for negotiations with the right project,” McCabe gushes.

 Mohave Valley Daily News Article

When you divorce responsibility from human action, the result is terms like “business climate”. I like the stranglehold metaphor, though. And what about the everything-is-on-the-table “negotiations” for the “right project”? Oh, for the anticipation of another neck to strangle! As if a half-nelson stranglehold is an “incentive” to move for a business currently enjoying a full-nelson.

 If everything truly was “on the table”, one of the dishes would be a heaping helping of freedom. Can’t have that. Damn businessmen would be running the streets in packs.

Posted by Dave

Getting It

From time to time you just wonder if anyone can be so clueless.

“When you go to registration, it raises all the `black helicopter’ crowd notion that what this is all about is identifying who has a gun,” Biden said, using a term referring to conspiracy theorists, “so that one day the government can get up and go to the house and arrest everyone who has a gun, and they’ll cite Nazi Germany and all that.”

 Vice President Joe Biden

It’s heartwarming to see that our masters finally get it.

Posted by Dave

Shortcuts

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Instead of exercising and eating healthy food, we buy “health” insurance.

 Instead of building a home that won’t burn or blow down or wash away, we buy home insurance.

 Instead of taking responsibility for our own defense, we hire a government to systematize robbery.

 Instead of learning how to grow our own food, we bitch about the prices at Wally World.

 Instead of growing wealthy by saving real money, e.g., gold and silver, we bitch about inflation from Federal Reserve Notes.

 Instead of building our own homes in a manner we think best, we beg permission from a Building Department to build shelters of flimsy, flammable sticks–to code, of course.

 Before practicing our trade to the best of our ability, we first beg permission from a licensing board.

 Instead of merely making a commitment to our mate, we rush to a magistrate for permission to cohabitate.

 Are we that unsure of ourselves that we can’t function without approval from “officials?”

Posted by Dave

Things Nobody Ever Asks or Mentions

The US Military is the largest gas purchaser in the world. Without that huge buying, what might happen to the price of gas? Do you think that $1.40/gallon gas might help the struggling economy? What sorts of things cause an economy to struggle?

It’s said that government borrowing and deficits mortgage our children’s future. But when the government prints up a bunch of money and starts spending it, it’s buying things that you might otherwise purchase, today, not in your grandchildren’s time. Do you think that has an effect on the prices you pay for things?

I’ve heard economists say that inflation is necessary to make a thriving economy, because it forces people to spend money that they might otherwise save. Gotta spend it before it loses value. But consider this: If the price of everything was falling like the thriving computer industry, wouldn’t our standard of living be going way up? We wouldn’t even need a raise in pay.

Economists say that in a depression the government should spend more to get the economy going. But why would robbing us harder benefit us? How does increasing the cost of living help the economy? “Pump-priming” the economy makes it sound as though people wouldn’t do anything but lay around all day if it weren’t for the government. I’m not convinced that government is a benefit.

“At a time when our business has finally begun to get some traction, hiring new workers, and bringing jobs back to America, we shouldn’t be making dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on like education and research and infrastructure and defense,” Obama said. “It’s unnecessary, and at a time when too many Americans are still looking for work, it’s inexcusable.”

O-Dawg, I need to bring you up to speed on current events. This country is dying and can’t heal itself because you and your kind are in the way.

I gotta go with Bubba on that one. O doesn’t have a clue what’s in the document he swore an oath to.

Posted by Dave

Nice Red Tie, Asshole!

Those Democratic Hoops are too easy to jump through. Our Republican Hoops have flames. Much more entertaining. And walls. Lots of walls.

If only my hero, Ronald Reagan, was here, he’d be all about securing the border.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Posted by Dave

Nice Blue Tie, Asshole.

If you work real hard, says the HNIC …

You can latch yourself onto that big ol’ government titty and start sucking. Like this. Maybe get yourself a nice gov’ment job.

Forgive me. Ridicule is all I have left. Reason has fled the country.

Posted by Dave

Essential Services

“Taxes are the price we pay for freedom.”

 Ignore the irony in that statement. Irony is dead. Let’s move on.

Government. Why do people eagerly flock to the polls to elect politicians that will rob us through taxation and constrain our liberty? Doesn’t make sense to me. The unintended consequence of all laws is a deadening of our spirit. I can remember when politicians used to get elected by promising less government. (Ha ha!) You don’t hear that anymore. Now our elected masters loudly proclaim how they want to pile on the laws. People don’t function well under compulsion.

 Roads. This “essential” government service is thrown in the faces of people who profess a liking for freedom. Their stumped look is taken as an “Aha, gotcha there, mister freedom-lover!” The sputtering answer is usually something like, “But private enterprise can do it better!” You can’t win that argument by accepting the premise that we need roads. I think I’d get along just as well with a horse, or walking. That’s just me. I wouldn’t force dusty trails or freedom on anyone. I know that the rural farm life is tough, but I don’t think it would be any tougher than chronic unemployment in a city. I might feel differently if my entire skill set wasn’t invested in the dead trade of carpentry. As for people who think that government roads are desirable, well, I suppose they do help you get to your plantation on time. Just keep in mind that permission to use those roads (drivers license) can be revoked at any time for any reason.

 Schools. Most people think that children, left to themselves, will sit on the couch all day and play video games, eating potato chips and drinking sugary soda pop. Maybe. There were no video games when I was a child. That might be why I spent almost all daylight hours outdoors. I have no rare insights into how to encourage a child to learn, but I do know that busing him to a locked-down prison camp is not the best way.

 Police. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see Officer Friendly. Major warning bells. The police don’t fuck around. They will Bonnie-and-Clyde-Deathcar your ass in a heartbeat, all in the name of “officer safety.” Without enforcers, no erosion of liberty would be possible.

 Fire Department. Wouldn’t it be a whole hell of a lot easier to just build homes that don’t burn? Mark Twain suggested this about a hundred years ago, and now that he’s gone, I’m the only person in the world that thinks this is a good idea. Just in my scrawny berg, every week a house burns and people are left homeless or lifeless. Why do people still build homes out of flimsy, flammable sticks?

 Military. In my lifetime, no other government has sent their army to attack America, but America’s government has attacked, without provocation, almost every country on this planet. I see no justification for, and only danger, in keeping a standing army. If the mightiest military on earth can’t subjugate goat herders in Afghanistan, then should I really worry about foreign invaders?

Posted by Dave