The show this week was great! Thanks to callers and listeners alike. Who knew the European Debt Crisis could be so much fun? To tell you the truth, the truth is so horrible that ya gotta laugh at it or you’d cry! Central economic control and the socialist state are as much a failure in Europe as they were in Russia and North Korea, and as I’m sure we will find, in China, yet Europeans continue to double down by betting again on socialism (in France) and communism (in Greece) in the elections of last week. What are they crazy? (Actually, maybe they are: check out my video preview of the show and the article I reference in that post: 40% of Europeans are reported to suffer mental illness!)
European Debt Crisis
If you haven’t been following the European Debt Crisis, the upshot is that the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece & Spain) are already effectively bankrupt and other countries, including France, are not far behind. Despite this, France replaced it’s “conservative” President Nicolas Sarkozy with a socialist, Francois Hollande, as Hollande promised to spare the French people austerity and still somehow spare them bankruptcy. I don’t even think Hollande believes this is possible, but he will raise taxes in a last ditch effort to placate the masses that he’s doing everything he can to get them their free lunch.
Austerity vs. Liberalization
Frankly, although I am the most fiscally conservative person you could imagine (I think government expenditure should be $0!) I don’t think the austerity they are talking about in Europe would work anyway.
Original Articles
End the Drug War: On & About This Week's Show
LEAP
I was joined in studio by Jay Fisher of LEAP–Law Enforcement Against Prohibition–that’s right! Cops, prosecutors and others in the field of law enforcement who are fed up with the Drug War have banded together to spread the word: The Drug War is a lost cause. Here’s a good short video by LEAP that introduces the subject of legalizing drugs from a few of the many law enforcement agents in the organization:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LayaGk0TMDc]
Many have concluded that the Drug War is a lost cause, but as with so many lost causes I have observed (the coercive, monopoly form of government for starters), they are lost because they are wrong and unnecessary, not because evil prevails.
Violence Is Caused by the Drug War NOT by Drug Use
The fact is, the extreme violence surrounding drugs is purely a result of the Drug War and not drug use.
The War on Terror, the TSA & Rupert Murdoch: On & About This Week's Show
This week on the show we talked about the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, but are we safer, and is this a big victory for Obama?
Are we really safer?
Are we really safer now that Osama bin Laden is dead? If he had been killed ten years ago, then I would say, yes, I feel safer, but the fact that that is no longer my answer is to me proof in itself that we have made things worse not better. We have taken out the two strongest, secular leaders, Hussein & Gaddafi–whether they were monsters or not, they were strong & they were secular and their deaths have increased instability in the region and caused radical Islam to spread, not to be contained. And we have gained absolutely nothing by our actions in Afghanistan as it looks like the Taliban will return to power there after we leave–as predicted by the courageous (and angry!) Michael Sheuer in his book Imperial Hubris.
Of course the powers that be speak out of both sides of their mouths, telling us that Al Qaeda is largely contained if not close to eradication, and at the same time double down on Homeland Security as if there were an imminent threat to the homeland by some massive invasion of terrorists. (See below.)
Documentary Review: a/k/a Tommy Chong
a/k/a Tommy Chong, written, produced, and directed by Josh Gilbert, is a documentary film that chronicles the Drug Enforcement Administration raid on comedian Tommy Chong’s house and his subsequent jail sentence for trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia. Chong was sentenced to 9 months in federal prison. Here’s the trailer….Continue reading >>>
Clark Howard, Hookers and Operation Fast & Furious: On & About This Week's Show
Clark Howard Stopped By the Studio!
What a great show! I was truly honored by a visit from WSB star, Clark Howard. My hour with Clark was the most fun I’ve ever had on the radio. If you missed it, you can check out show archives on wsbradio.com. At first I thought Clark was annoyed that I was destroying the planet with incandescent light bulbs but really he was just giving me his! He insists that the new light bulbs save money in year one and that they’re worth having for economic reasons alone. I found that argument pretty persuasive. And just for the record…It’s NOT that I want to destroy the planet,
Documentary Review: An Inconvenient Tax
I have concluded that limited government is impossible. Once you give a government a monopoly over the use of force and the dispensation of justice as well as the ability to tax, it will always and everywhere grow beyond the limits originally set for it. The American Experiment is proof positive of this. The United … Read more
The Forgotten 4%
All this talk about fairness and the “rich” paying their “fair share”, you’d think the lower classes were bearing the greatest burden of taxation but they are not, not by a long shot! First of all, 49.5% of tax filers pay NO INCOME TAX WHATSOEVER–these of course are the lowest earners, not the highest earners! For this reason, and others, the United States has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world and has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
I do think the current tax system is unfair, but because only the top half of all earners pay anything at all! And what’s worse, it’s the top earners, not the wealthiest, who pay the vast majority of the taxes. The idle rich (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and the government-connected rich (there IS something wrong with that!) aren’t necessarily the ones paying income tax. Income tax is paid by those who earn an income for labor. The richer you are the less you need to do this so per force the majority of the highest earners are still below the level of those rich enough not to have to work–this is primarily (and perhaps by definition) the upper middle class.
According to the chart below, the lower 95% of earners are paying the same in taxes as the top 1%–both groups pay roughly 40% of the taxes. That other 4%,
Happy Tax Day! I'd Rather Burn The Money: On & About This Week's Show
I might not mind so much paying taxes if I weren’t so horrified by what they’re using it for! Check out this article in this month’s Wired magazine: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say). And check out the insane New World Order imagery on this logo for the government program Total Information Awareness. I thought it was a joke or an Alex Jones type mock-up, but no, it’s real. I guess you can’t make this stuff up!
And this is what they’re up to….
Obamacare, Romneycare & Proof That Both Parties March Us Down the Road to Serfdom: On & About This Week’s Show
Here is a video of the press conference Obama held last week. For Obama’s discussion of Obamacare and the Supreme Court as well as the sycophantic attitude of the reporter (which garners chuckles from fellow reporters)
Trayvon Martin, Gun Control & the Drug War: On & About This Week's Show
This week on the show I discussed the disingenuousness of Mayor Bloomberg as he says in the video below that because of loose gun laws he is concerned for the safety of his family, while he is widely quoted as having said in November that “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world….I have my own State Department.” But what galls me is that he and others are using the Trayvon Martin killing to set the stage for a new push to further curtail our Second Amendment rights. Although I’m not a gunslinger myself (yet), I do believe that the Second Amendment is what stands between us and complete tyranny. Below the video are a couple of links I think may be of interest in defense of gun rights.