My Sister Goes to America for Several Months....

...and all I get is this lousy bottle of hot sauce.



Pretty sure BO didn't endorse this; cool if he did.

-- Post From My iPhone

Zero Base Policy: A Cautionary Tale

Finished reading Zero Base Policy, the new tome by Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute, 2 days ago and I can highly recommend it; there are sections, such as that on healthcare which go nowhere near far enough, but you get the impression that this is more a love letter to David Cameron and his incoming Bory government; Lord knows there is probably little doubt they will get in and that their gaping policy void will need to be filled; Dr Pirie is trying to make sure it's his and not the EU's vision for our future which wins out, as laughable a probability as that is.

While sitting contemplating the text I got into thinking that the most important point of the text is the rationale for his policy formulation, "zero base policy"; that rather than try to polish, cut and shape the turd that is the current government machine we should just start from scratch with a view as to what we want a particular arm of government to achieve.

Given enough time it should be possible to achieve this without having usher in a political revolution that no democratic mandate would ever allow, especially when a mere fraction of the population vote you in; you can just whittle down the rules and laws you dont like, such as those giving you (some) right to self-determination, to a presumption of innocence till proven guilty by a court of your peers and the belief that taxation should serve a function of government, not the swivel -eyed, moral diarrhoea of a few select morons and their bribe-endorsed clientelle, and add a few that alter justice and the law at it's core, a salami slice at a time.

And then I remembered that Labour had had 10+ years, with 3 electorial mandates born of mix of apathy, stupidity and a belief that the never never would not stop, until the crunch proves otherwise.

Funny that.

Reader, don't believe for a minute that Cambo will change a thing; it is in his interests not to piss off his paymasters in the EU; no majority or popular mandate on earth will stop the rot taking hold; it'll just mean the elephant in the room is covered over with a blue-ish cover instead of a red one, Hannan and Carswell apologising all the way in their pleasing Hugh Grant kind of way for the readers of the Telegraph will enjoy.

Here are my predictions in this light: The Borys, despite having no real policies, just a shiny-headed freak who's entire ambition is to drive the big red bus (despite the breaks being cut and a cliff fast approaching) will sweep to victory, Brown having accepted reality and becoming a fully fledged basket case, having finally seen the illusion come tumbling down, will drag Labour disappearing into debt ridden destitution, it's party leaders rightfully nailed to the wall (except for Mandelson, who's only job having been to keep the Zanu NuLabour train ticking over till the Lisbon Treaty is ratified).

Ireland vote no in October and are bled for their crimes against the progressive righteous, before being asked again, cos we didn't hear you properly last time.

Longer term we have yet another freezing bloody winter and world temperatures drop over the subsequent decade; somehow everyone is still convinced we are all going to burn to death while thousands die from cold weather, war and entirely missing the point; that all the AGW debate has been is the latest socialist death-cult, hellbent on "population control".

And you will vote for the other guy once the Borys collapse into scandal- never realising that perhaps the person you should put your trust in is you.

And when it comes to that think LPUK, and hope it is no longer illegal to say you are your own keeper and not your brothers.

-- Post From My iPhone

Taxation

Looking out over the beautiful Lake District countryside. Have begun reading Dr Madsen Pirie's excellent new book Zero Base Policy released via the Adam Smith Institute and relaxing with little or no Internet access. Fun

One has to wonderful on one thing straight off; by page 13 he is calling for a mire fair tax system which doesn't punish the poor or the rich in society- this includes an illustration that Tolley's Yellow Tax Handbook, the standard go to text on your tax "liabilities" (ie what they will put you in jail for if you don't pay up) has effectively doubled in size from 4988 pages to 10134 pages (not taking into account a format change, making it more condensed!)

I'm wondering if their is a simple solution to tax reform which will prevent aggresive taxation; standardise the format, text size and font and limit the number of pages that the tax code is codified on, say to 500 pages, then protect these standards constitutionally, changes being put to plebiscite.

Wealth creators would then have an easy frame of reference and be less able to "avoid" being robbed from, and the wealth destroyers would have to be more open about their theft.

Think about the more extensive opportunities of this kind of approach to legislation- imagine why this would do to health and safety regulations, finance etc...

Just saying is all.

-- Post From My iPhone

Oh, The World Owes Me A Living...

Do be do be do be do be doooo!

First spotted this joke at Rab's place, now spotted on the Bossman's page I thought it best to give this wonderful cartoon from the 40s an airing.

A cautionary tale indeed.

Of course in our world somehow the grasshopper convinced enough people the summer would last forever and so they deposed the queen. Now that its winter and the pickings are slim he still will not admit he's right.

When foreign nests will no longer bail him out, when the pantry is finally empty, and the ants are eating tree bark to maintain a meagre, miserable existence then they will see that the truth.

And they will eat him and his cronies alive.

Where is John Galt?

Over at party's blog site RobW tells it like it is. We always knew it would come to this under labour; a swollen state, one quarter of the populace being supported by the other three and the threat of union strikes holding our body politic to ransom on both sides so that no decision will be good enough to save us from more winters of discontents, 3 days weeks or union tyranny.

Forget Maggy, forget asking who is John Galt; where is John Galt?

Sex

Sex is wonderful; it greatly increases relaxation, it brings you closer to your partner, it's a tradeable commodity (and has been since time immemorial despite every attempt to ignore this fact) and best yet for many of us it can lead to a wonderful prize 9 months later, as I found out 2 months ago.

Now I'm a Christian so I believe that you shouldn't have sex before you married, but it would be wise to point out that from my reading of the bible God doesn't much concern himself with fancy tax-write-off titles ordained by men in frocks and a state official; he's more in it for seeing who you have paired off with- God has little time for titles.

The one thing I dislike, and do not actually believe exists, is "casual sex"; whether you treat sex as casual or not the act itself is as powerful emotionally and spiritually as it is physically-to not feel in this act is to push the emotional baggage elsewhere and for it to come manifest itself somewhere else in your life.

All this feeds into this post by Leg-Iron; it seems that in line with the standard modus operendi of ZNL pragmatism is about to be subsumed by a minority, ironically calling themselves Christians; I would have to call them to task on this- I would take my Christian brethren to task on this, that they are willing to sacrifice lives for the sake of spreading their ideology.

Most parents have higher aspirations for their kids than for them to merely keep their legs closed and pants on during their teenage years; they want their kids to live better, more fulfilled lives than themselves and hopefully outlast them, which is really all this vaccine does- it mitigates the risk of developing a deadly disease which wil reduce their quality of life.

I would say in answer to it's detractors that despite their proselytising what have they really achieved? Are we to win our cause through faith or through fear? The reformation movement, which all modern denominations were born off, was a rejection of fear instilled in them by an increasingly corporatist and brutal blend of state and theocracy; the act of presenting Jesus' message in al it simplicity without the garb and pomp meant we no longer had to live in fear, just in Christ.

It appears were are regressing to a period of fear and loathing; Labour will be obliterated at the next election but the degree,, whether they ate bankrupted by the experience and become a nasty blot in the history books or whether they carry on keeping the Soc Dems seats warm when they become the opposition party for the next decade is all down to how many minority groups they can give patronage to now; politicians thrive on mob rule and popular impetus, Christians will be no different in how they are treated.

I am not advocating we give our kids carte blanche on being promiscuous; the most powerful birth control known to man is money, or the lack thereof, so maybe we shouldn't be offering free homes or money to single mums, and relaxing overzealous rules on foster care and adoption service so that "unwanted" children can find homes in "wanting" families.

Either way this fits the pattern of control began long ago and accelerated during ZNL's autocracy and the Bory's laxness as an opposition; In exchange for a secure but impoverished existence for our nations poor, it's broken and it's children it demands the control over them; here is hoping that their inability to satisfy these basic needs without driving this country into the ground leads us to ask some fundamental questions about the freeing power of choice, self-reliance and personal charity rather than how the other guys will "fix" things.

Here's hoping my fellow Chistians will have the courage to tell it like it is in the future, rather than rely on government judicial fiat.

There is Nothing Altruistic About Socialism

Old Holborn's vitriolic attack on the architects of this present darkness follows on from a particularly depressing youth group leadership meeting in which we find several of our children, whom we'd come to regard as being on the mend from some horrific experiences in similarly deprived areas have actually not been improving at all; merely becoming more manipulative and dishonest despite enormous sacrifices from all, to the point where some of our leadership opening up their homes so they could have some semblance of order in their lives.

Who is to blame for all of this? Whilst sitting in the meeting yesterday having the tales of our youths activities told to us in all it's depressing horror I no longer feel that I or my fellow youth group have not done enough; we have simply reached the end of our resources to deal with these children- and it is not a question of physical resources, but spiritual and mental; some of these kids have simply been deprived of the mental and spiritual capacity to interact with us.

This is a product of 90 years of socialism; these kids, like the kids of Doncaster, cannot interact with each other or with the adults (who themselves are little more than jailers rather than educators, since Balls got his hands in education) because they lack the spritual and mental growth- why? They are not encouraged because adulthood not only carries the "responsibilities" that our fearless leaders now try to instill with "citizenship" classes but "rights" too, and if you have rights you have the freedom to question the responsibilities that those who deem to rule use force on us, and they cannot have that.

Their world of rubbing shoulders with others of their kind is built using the power of democratic fiat over the free will of others- they loot the wealth creators by thinly veiling their actions as "altruism"; it could not be further from altruism if it tried. Don't believe me? Look at the way "poverty" is calculated- it is pegged to average wage rather than living conditions meaning which ever percentage they deem poverty as being below it you will always have poverty!!! The average wage could be 1 million pounds in todays money, able to buy goods at todays prices, and the righteous (TM Leg-iron) would claim those with only £500k in the bank where in poverty.

Real poverty- the kind where you have to eat treebark and live in a cardboard box is ignored, and the focus is placed on shiny baubles rather than the underlying sprititual deprivation, and I lay the blame for this entirely at the socialists, the progressives and the righteous' gold-plated, index-linked doors.

You pay people to behave like scum and you will have more scummy people; there children will excel in scum studies.

You convince people that "despotism-by-proxy" is the best way to achieve "utopia" and you will have more despots.

You champion a system based on need and you will have more needy people.

-- Post From My iPhone

Hain: Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain

Much has been made of Hain's boycott of Question Time in light of the BBC's, for once, entirely right decision to give the BNP loons a chance to score some own goals. (has anyone asked him to appear? Or is this just hubris and conceit based on some previous appearances?) Many have commented that the reason is down to similarities in party policies, cowardice or a collective cross-party policy of ignorance in the frankly mistaken belief they will, you know, just disappear.

I have a far simpler hypothesis as hinted in the title; the BNP in all their swivel-eyed, odious angst and unrealistic buck-passing make excellent copy in the papers whilst truly important, highly destructive policies Which if not putting lives at risk by the thousands are putting our children and grandchildren into perpetual penury by those politicians in power, despite their "progressive" viewpoint, and all for the feckless face-saving of todays politicians.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; have a look at that guy over there who says he hates brown people.

Cambo and Badger: Framing The Debate for the Next Election

A lot has been made about the tit for tat calls for "cuts" in "public" spending by Badger and Cambo; gone is the rhetoric from both sides about ramping up public spending or keeping it on track as public opinion moves to being in favour of massive cuts, showing them for the cretinous headline chasers they are.

This is not the focus of this particular vent; again many people will most certainly overlook the most important point here: they are prattling on about how much they plan on stealing from your wallet in the next political round.

They are thieves, liars and corrupt to boot; let me put it another way; where they to come direct to your home and told you they were taking HALF your wages each month to pay for over a thousand busybodying quangos, an ineffective health and police service and for the feckless to find the time to keep these services occupied would you hand it over? No? How much less do you appreciate it when you could be thrown in jail for not doing so?

Mrs. DK has put it beat here:

This assumption is gigantically invidious, as it underpins every argument redistributionists and opponents of ‘privilege’ make about the state’s choice to reduce or remove taxation on particular bodies or transactions. And I speculate that most people do not, as I did not, even notice the presence of that assumption. We are letting them get away with it. And before long, it will no longer be an assumption that nobody notices; it will be a general principle that is taken for granted. Perhaps it already is.

Why, oh why, do we libertarians continue to allow our opponents to dictate the terms of debate in this way?

This mindset is what needs to be corrected; that our government exists by the whims of its people, not for the betterment if one group at the expense of another but so such actions can be proscribed an dealt with by the law.

We can't achieve anything if we continue to let them frame the debate with us in chains; we have already lost in that instance.

-- Post From My iPhone

Social Work: The Nuclear Option

Have just read JuliaM's thoughts on Edlington and social "care" in general; having landed in a part time job in a field not a hundred miles from social services I find this needs some comment from what I hope is a libertarian perspective.

Most libertarians I know are naturally predisposed to black and white rules applied across everyone; they (I) surmise (normally rightly) that greying the rules normally leads to plenty of areas for those with a collectivist mindset to hide, grow and cause damage.

As involved with children, with youth groups and my church as I am I have to say I agree with this supposition; lives may not be black and white but the rules governing them can be- hence I have often advocated that the best way to apply social care is to see it for what it is: a mix or choice between criminal and health concerns best left to the police and judicial services and/or a minimised health service designed to deal with crisis, emergency an long term care.

What the current situation illustrates is that the focus on individual rights, which ultimately are un-upholdable in the long term (the right to moneys unearned, healthcare etc), has led to ignoring the responsibilities these people needed to keep; to their kids, to society (i.e. not causing misery through criminal action) and so on.

I don't think the present setup is recoverable; we have children who come to our youth group from incredibly deprived backgrounds who, despite enduring horrifying things, are starting to go on the mend (if such a thing is possible) but such groups as ours are not only few but are actively thwarted by those in authority; fot example, it is hard to justify multiple-million pound budgets for drug rehabilitation when a bunch of volunteers and real compassion can achieve better results; best to constrain them in the hope if looking less bad.

Hence I propose this short-term solution, with an explanation that, though doesn't make it hold water against the libertarian ideal for individual freedom, at least explains a radical idea and compromise based on the following precepts:

1. We are paying untold benefits to people to behave like scum.
2. Scum are having children who in turn stand a good chance of not breaking the mold.
3. Biotechnology and fertility technology is advancing at a substantially fast enough pace to enable all sort of people previously unable to conceive to conceive, and for tissue samples to be preserved.

Hence my idea, the nuclear option if you will, to the problem of feral children and parents is thus: a precondition to remaining on long term benefits (say longer than a year) of any kind is the forfeit of your "right" to have children, implemented by chemical sterilisation with storage of egg/sperm/reproductive tissue prior to this. These rights would then be "restored" by the free provision of reproductive health consults and artificial insemination when they can present a "co-gaurantour" who will part fund that child's upbringing; forfeit of reproductive rights would be immeadiately compulsory to first time single mothers applying for child benefit, though the benefit would be higher than it is now (the extra perhaps being specifically proscribed in it's use).

This I aware is incredibly autocratic and as unlibertarian as it comes, but consider the following:

1. You have a right to children but their welfare is your responsibility: the welfare state has created a state of affairs where children are little more than currency, to be exchanged for beer, fags and a free house- this is only possible whilst the taxpayers agrees to this gouging.

2. is the alternative- unmitigated access to having children with no individual responsibily working out?: all the evidence of remedial care from social services indicates no to me, compounded by the states numerous attempts to undermine private initiative.

3. Am I likely to be the first person to think this?: and is it likely the righteous in a position of power thinking along the same lines might omit to give them the option of children later on?

The present situation is untenable for another generation; with 1 in 4 (myself included) receiving one benefit or another and 1 in 6 children living in a household with noone working on more generation will push the strain beyond what the productive part of the economy can handle and it will up sticks and move to a more grateful and productive nation. This is still a reality even with such radical ideas- it would be irresponsible to continue supporting the production of children to parents who are unwilling to support under their own steam if at all, as is being aptly demonstrated of late.

How Are These Scum Still in Power?

It appears that the Al Megrahi agreement was down to oil and business deals.

"The Justice Secretary said he was unapologetic about including Abdelbaset al Megrahi in the agreement, citing a multi-million-pound oil deal signed by BP and Libya six weeks later....

....When asked in the interview if trade and BP were factors, Mr Straw admits: “Yes, [it was] a very big part of that. I’m unapologetic about that... Libya was a rogue state. 

“We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal.”

The (In)Justice Secretary is unapologetic to the 259 people who lost their lives in a terrorist attack; there deaths pave the way to palms being greased by big oil and business interests and a few extra pounds from their british registered corporate satellites into government coffers.

Brilliant.

Not that I think that Al Megrahi is guilty, but if you think about it releasing him on the grounds of pseudo-clemency (i.e. he recanted on his appeal in order to be released earlier than an appeal hearing would keep him so he can enjoy the last few months of cancer ridden life he has left) kills 2 birds with one stone:

1. Britain gets a business deal with a nation with proved oil reserves.
2. No appeal and the assumption of guilt through psuedo-clemency; no awkward questions about the Iranians, the Syrians or the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3rd 1988 by the U.S. Navy’s missile cruiser USS Vincennes or how this figures into the run up to thefirst Gulf war.

Any investigation into this whitewash would have tarred Labour, Tory, SMP and US officials in the process. Yet again though we witness an elite whose actions are ignored by a compliant sheeple who will simply "retaliate" on the most recent shower of bastards by voting for the other turd with a rosette in the next election.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER WAY!

LPUK wants the individual to be at the centre of policy; hence we would support a minimum state to support the plethora of diversity amongst individuals - we would not, I repeat, NOT, sacrifice people on the altar of big business nor for political expediency; YOU ARE ITS MASTERS AND THE GOVERNMENT EXISTS TO SERVE YOU, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Remember that if you vote for the same, you get the same.

Capitalism Works: The Case for the Abolition of the DfID

Via guido I found this wonderful invention, and a call for more efficient spending of DfID funds on such ideas.

I have a considerably simpler idea on how to achieve this goal: abolish the DfID outright, and use the money as a drop in tax from which we can donate to charity ourselves.

It appears over the last decade they have had enough spare cash to indoctrinate our children and engage in pure politically motivated activities; taking that back alone would give us enough money to buy over 800000 units per year which as they can filter 6000L of water and an average human male requires ~2L a day would last 3000 days or a little over 8 years by which point replacements would become commercially viable for a healthier African population.

Does anyone know how to create a transferable web badge? I want to start a campaign to abolish the DfID and include a pledge to use the money saved in lower taxes to donate to worthy charities of our choice; charity not only begins at home but also flows from there; government cannot be "generous" or "charitable" because by definition it does not have any of it's own money- I would not be considered a charitable giver by the judiciary if all the money I gave was stolen/mugged from other people- why is government different?

Thought For The Morning

Via Snuffy (will link when On proper computer):

"'Well, you're of the right, and I'm of the left.'

Come again?

Such a statement coming from a lefty means something like 'You are an evil right-winger who is only interested in stealing from the poor, whereas I am decent and wish to help them.' It says, 'this conversation is over'. Down come the shutters. Bang. There is a barbaric deliberate refusal to seek to know more from someone, who let's face it, thanks to her profession, her experience, her obsessions and constant thought on these matters, just, well, knows more."

Now I don't think of myself as either left or right wing but just wanted to point out; if righty's do indeed want this isn't their business plan a little flawed? The poor aren't known for their wealth.

Just saying is all.