Live free or die

Obama buys votes with a student loan scam

Obamao's student loan fraud: He thinks he can buy the votes of college students at a mere $4 to $8 per month.

He's probably right. After all, many of today's students and graduates are incapable of rationally processing information because they are getting worthless degrees in bitterness and victimhood (ie "Liberal" Arts such as Women's Studies, Social Inequality Studies, Black Studies, Gender Confusion Studies, Native American Studies, Diversity Studies, Sensitivity Studies, and other Pitty-Me Studies.)

See "Occupy Wall Street" for an assembly of these people with an unemployable education.



While I would expect Obamao to exploit his "useful idiot" support base, his scheme is a slap in the face of those who have paid or are paying their student loans as contracted. It is a slap in the face of those who managed to work their way through college (as their parents did), without debt. Obamao is implying that the responsible students are fools.

If Obamao really wants to fix the problem he needs to work with Congress to get the central government out of education:
• The skyrocketing cost of education parallels the introduction and growth of the US Department of Education.
• The soaring cost of education is fueled by easy student loans. Students and parents perceive borrowed money as free money and fail to wisely shop for the best value in education. Colleges exploit this distortion of the free market knowing students and parents don't look at the total debt that will be accumulated.
• The plummeting quality of education began with the introduction and growth of the US Department of Education.
• The central government has no constitutional authority to intrude into education.

The 53 percent of taxpaying Americans (which includes college graduates with real degrees) do not owe college students anything. Obamao has no right or legitimate authority to write a check at the expense of those hard-working 53%. Instead, today's college students and graduates owe it to themselves and to society to grow up! This isn't an economic problem. It's cultural.

Immunization Paranoia

Ask anyone who has survived travel to third-world countries (as I have - 125 nations so far) and especially those who survived places like Hanoi Hilton. We will tell you that immunization has saved our lives. A trace of mercury in some vaccines is nothing compared to the diseases we're exposed to in under-immunized nations or those which our unimmunized ancestors faced.

In my nearly 40 years of global travel, I have always felt safe in coming home to my children (and now my grandchildren) knowing I'm not a vector for something that could kill them and, if I am, they are immunized against whatever I'm most likely to be carrying.

Today, I was asked, "If the vaccinations work, why would the vaccinated fear an unvaccinated me?"

Because I am vaccinated, I have no fear of disease in places like Africa and South Asia. I therefore am certainly not afraid of Americans who aren't vaccinated. My lack of fear is a natural consequence and benefit of my choice (and that of my parents) to accept vaccination.

I oppose mandatory vaccination of the general civilian population. I support the right of parents to deny vaccinations for their children. But, rights imply responsibilities and choices imply consequences. Like me and my choice, the unvaccinated and their parents also must accept the natural consequences of their choice. Such consequences include disease and, if the Public Health Service announces incidences of a potentially dangerous communicable disease, self-imposed family quarantine -- even if not showing symptoms of illness.

We, who are vaccinated, don't fear you. But, consider this: One out of 20 children with measles -- a very common disease during my childhood -- gets pneumonia. For every 1,000 children who get the disease, one or two will die from it. (The side-effects of a measles vaccination are insignificant by comparison.) The unvaccinated have a moral obligation to not be a potential vector of such dangerous illnesses to infect others who are unvaccinated. And, the unvaccinated would certainly would be wise to fear each other!

Those who chose to not immunize their children must acknowledge and appreciate that their unimmunized children have significant protection from epidemics that never happen because most other parents immunize theirs.

My generation was the last to see an epidemic in America. I had classmates who were crippled by polio. That disease killed an uncle. I remember my mother taking us to Doctor Bunderson to get shot over 50 years ago. Today, I wonder whether those primitive-by-today's-standards shots are a factor in the inconvenient allergies and arthritis I have today in my 60s. But I do know that whatever inconveniences I suffer today have been a small price to pay to avoid a wheelchair or death.

History shows that lack of immunization is an excellent form of population control.

S.1691/HR.58, the Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act

The nation's gun laws are outdated and overly restrictive. To a large extent, they violate one of the fundamental rights protected by the US Constitution.

Senators Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have introduced S.1691, the Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act. A companion bill, HR.58 is in the House. The legislation allows for the interstate sale of firearms and removes several antiquated and unnecessary restrictions imposed on interstate firearms transactions.

"Current laws restricting interstate commerce of firearms not only lag behind common sense and new technology, they are unfair and burdensome," Sen. Begich said. "This legislation cleans up decades-old laws that are unnecessarily restricting the rights of Alaskans and other Americans to purchase and sell firearms."

"Utahns and Americans everywhere have a right to bear arms, and this legislation ensures that onerous and outdated restrictions on everyone’s Second Amendment rights are no longer in place," Sen. Hatch said. "By removing these restrictions, we can ensure that the constitutional freedoms we seek to protect remain intact."

"The National Instant Criminal Background Check System has made many restrictions enacted in 1968 obsolete. It’s time to bring the law into the 21st century. This important legislation will modernize and streamline interstate firearms transactions. The NRA and gun owners across the nation thank Senators Hatch and Begich for their leadership on this issue," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act removes a number of restrictions from the Gun Control Act of 1968, which only allowed licensed dealers to sell rifles and shot guns to residents of a different state under a lengthy series of conditions. The restrictions were supposed to prevent buyers from evading “background checks” available at the time, which were mainly carried out through state laws requiring local police chiefs to issue firearms permits.

However, since 1998, all people buying firearms from dealers in the US have been subject to computerized background checks under the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS); a system much more sophisticated and advanced than what was available in 1968. As a result, the complex system of laws currently restricting the interstate commerce of firearms is outdated.

The irony of current law is that it never did anything to control the behavior of criminals who, by definition, don’t obey the law! It only makes life harder for responsible Americans.

Among other features, S.1691/HR.58 would restore the right of individuals to buy handguns, as well as rifles or shotguns, from licensed dealers in another state, subject to the background check requirement. The buyer and dealer would still have to meet in person and comply with the laws of both states.

S.1691/HR.58 is a small, long overdue step toward restoring the rights of law-abiding Americans with regard to firearm purchases. Congress and the acting president must ensure that it becomes law immediately.

HR.2349, The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act

Federal law establishes several categories of persons who are restricted from possessing firearms and ammunition. Theoretically, the purpose of this legislation is to keep guns out of the hands of irresponsible persons. It is obvious that persons with criminal intent will obtain and use a gun regardless of the law. The true result of the law is that it makes gun ownership and use more difficult for responsible persons.

Among the categories of restricted persons is for those who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent. Congress wanted to ensure that rights are protected through due process of law and that only after appropriate evidence is presented and a judge is satisfied that an individual is incapable of making appropriate decisions regarding the use of a firearm should his rights be forfeited.

The Veterans Administration (VA) has an egregious policy of submitting names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion in the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) firearms purchaser background check database when this reporting is unjustified and without due process. For example, the VA has been submitting the names of veterans who have a fiduciary appointed to manage their financial affairs as "mental defectives" who are then permanently prohibited from possessing or having access to firearms and ammunition.

The VA’s disgraceful practice is a purely bureaucratic decision – not a judicial one as required by the law! It does nothing to protect the veteran’s rights. It only punishes honorable men and women whose only crime was to volunteer to serve their country. It is a shameful assault on the veteran as well as on the intent of Congress.

It is not uncommon for a veteran with minor memory issues or problems such as compulsive buying or gambling to have themselves declared mentally incompetent to manage their own affairs and turn over control of their financial affairs to a spouse or relative to manage for them. Even if such an arrangement and diagnoses is temporary -- such as in the case of a severely wounded veteran undergoing long-term rehabilitation or comatose patients -- once the name is submitted to NICS, it is virtually impossible for them to ever regain right to arms.

The VA’s hostile policy has cause irreparable and unjustified harm to America’s war veterans. It must be stopped. The damage must be reversed immediately.

Appropriate legislation has been languishing in both houses of Congress for several years in spite of bi-partisan efforts to get it moving. Congress, therefore, is at least as culpable as are the nameless VA bureaucrats.

Last week, the House passed HR.2349 which contains language which is a small step toward repairing this assault on our veterans. The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act specifies that only veterans who have been adjudicated to be a danger to themselves or others are to be submitted for inclusion in the NICS database. This simple adjustment could restore firearms rights to as many as 100,000 veterans who have had their names unreasonably submitted to NICS.

This important reform is long overdue. I urge Congress and the acting president to aggressively work for immediate passage of HR.2349 with the Veterans' Second Amendment Protection language intact.

The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011

HR.822, the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011" is a small but long-overdue step toward the restoration of the Constitutional right of Americans to self-defense by enabling concealed firearm permit holders to exercise their right to self-defense while traveling outside their home states.

Just a few years ago, the right of responsible Americans to carry a concealed firearm was all but lost due to decades of anti-liberty legislation and court rulings. Of course, not one of those laws affected the behavior of criminals. Today, forty-nine states have laws restoring, to some extent, the right of responsible adults to carry the best means of defense against those criminals – a gun.

Statistics from this restoration of the right to carry a concealed firearm show that civilians carrying guns tend to be more responsible in the use of their guns than law enforcement. The portion of licensed civilians who violate the law is statistically insignificant.

FBI data shows that states with right-to-carry laws have significantly lower violent crime rates. The seven states with the lowest violent crime rates are right-to-carry states.

Other statistics indicate that permit-holders from States with little or no training requirements are just as safe and conscientious as permit-holders from States with severe training and screening requirements. In fact, there is a strong movement to reduce training requirements and even permits altogether because legislatures are learning that training and permit mandates don't really matter. Besides, the people they should really be focusing on -- criminals -- don't bother with permits.

So, the claim that some States make that nobody else's permit is good enough is not valid. The bottom line is that those states most likely reject the permits of other States primarily because they lose revenue from reduced sales of their own permit -- not because permits from other States are somehow unsafe.

There is no rational justification for one State refusing to recognize the permits of another. This is a willful violation of the Second Amendment rights of visitors from other States. It must be stopped. HR.822 is intended to do just that.

HR.822 recognizes the significant impact of landmark Supreme Court cases which found that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms and that the protections of the Second Amendment extend to infringements under state law.

HR.822 would establish interstate recognition of lawfully issued carry permits, just as they recognize driver's licenses and carry permits held by armored car guards.

HR.822 will not create a federal licensing or registration system; establish a minimum federal standard for the carry permit; involve the federal bureaucracy in setting standards for carry permit; or destroy permitless carry systems such as those in Arizona, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming.

I am unalterably opposed to the central government telling the States what they must and must not do except where absolutely necessary to enforce the US Constitution. Gun rights is clearly one of those fundamental Constitutional issues.

I therefore urge every congressman and the acting president to aggressively fight for immediate and overwhelming enactment of this legislation.

Camels

Look at the camels first and then read the message below.



This is a picture taken from directly above these camels in the desert at sunset. When you look closely, you can see that the camels are the little white lines in the picture. The black images you see are just the shadows!

Sometimes, our "problems" seem to be as big as the shadows; but they are relatively small.

Diversity education

I enjoyed a recent Cowboy Libertarian commentary on so-called "diversity" education (women's studies, gay-lesbian-transgender studies, ethnic studies, etc.) In his broadcast, he wondered about the utility of such an education.

I feel it necessary to point out that there is indeed a huge market for graduates of "diversity" education. Graduates go to work for the government. They can't find work anywhere else. But, the government has lots of influential positions for them. Government creates more such positions all the time.

College-level diversity programs are designed to prepare people to destroy traditional American and Christian values. They can best do so as government bureaucrats and politicians.

That is a key reason why the government -- all levels of government -- is so screwed up.

As the Cowboy Libertarian, Pat Dorinson, says, voters need to educate themselves and stand up to call a stop this madness in our colleges and universities. Ban the use of taxpayer money to fund "diversity" education!

Bigoted "Christians"

I have long suspected that key people at AFA (American Family Association) as well as several other high-profile evangelical Christian individuals and organizations (eg Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas) harbor and foster profound ignorance regarding Mormons (including Mitt Romney) and their devotion to Jesus. AFA's Bryan Fischer has confirmed my suspicions regarding bigotry at AFA.

It is true that Mormon understanding of the character and person of God the Father and His son, Jesus, differs from the mainstream Christian view which was developed by a committee (Council of Nicaea) assembled by a pagan emperor (Constantine). However, Mormons do believe in our Heavenly Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit and that they are separate persons (Acts 7:55, Matthew 3:17, John 20:21) who are one -- united -- in purpose (John 10:30). Mormons devoutly accept Jesus as their Savior. Mormons claim that their understanding comes from Scripture and divine revelation -- not from a committee.

It is perfectly acceptable and prudent to challenge candidates such as Romney on issues and character, as do many Mormons. But, Mr. Fischer should really be ashamed of his ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance regarding those who are not of his own narrow-minded faith.

Non-Mormons who would vote against Romney because he is Mormon are just as wrong-headed as Mormons who would vote for Romney because he is Mormon. They are just as wrong as blacks who voted for Obamao because he is half-black and non-blacks who voted against him because he is only half-white.

Study what the Constitution says about a religious test for political office (Article VI, paragraph 3). You see, one need not be any brand of Christian to hold office in the United States. One need not even be Christian at all! In fact, one could be Moslem or even Atheist!

Study Romney's stand and history on issues important to you. Study his character. These are the proper measures of a political candidate.

I have long supported AFA because its efforts on certain issues parallel my own concerns. Due to Mr. Fischer's bigoted remarks regarding Mormons and the First Amendment, I can no longer support that organization.

Nevertheless, I support AFA's right to say what ever it chooses so long as it is not slanderous or dishonest -- the First Amendment even protects AFA bigots. AFA will have to do so without my support.





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Capitalist pig

Over the past several days, selfish and deluded young Marxists have been emulating their deluded old hippie parents of the '60s by protesting success.

What these people fail to understand is that the successful people they disdain create jobs for millions.

What these people fail to understand is that the corruption in corporate boardrooms is in compliance with, and fostered by, the egregious regulations created by Marxists in Congress.

Toward Congress -- and the Marxists they elected -- is where they should be directing their anger. They also should be marching outside the White House in protest of Obama's failed and destructive policies.







If it weren't for competitors like Steve Jobs, Bill gates would probably still be selling MS-DOS and personal computers would still be running on 8088 processors, 64 kB of RAM and a single 5.25-inch floppy drive.

Steve Jobs made life better for all of us -- even those of who have never owned one of his products.

That is the beauty of a free market and capitalism.

Except for politicians and other thieves, in a free market, nobody can get rich unless they provide a product or service that people want and need at a price they are willing to pay.

If the protesting anti-capitalist punks had their way, we'd all still be counting on our fingers to compute.

Now, guess which protester in the cartoon below represents the 53% of Americans who pay taxes and which protester represents the 47% of Americans who are parasites.