Prayer to the traffic light god (abridged edition)

Traffic light god, traffic light god
Why, why, why?
Do you have any idea
what I could do
with, my, time?

Traffic light god, traffic light god
Why, why, why?
Don't you think it's queer,
that with no one near
I sit here
behind, this, line?

Traffic light god, traffic light god
WHY, Why, why?
You build a wall,
that I can't see
WHAT ARE YOU DOING T--Oh, it's green.

Decade of debt

Click to enlarge.

This chart shows the national debt from Jan 2000 until April 1, 2010. Notice that it more than doubled in this decade.

Source: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

My moving story

So I had been checking out this free state project for a while. I fell into the strong version of freedom about four years ago. I made a visit to New Hampshire, even had a job interview, back in 2007. It wasn't until this past summer that I actually made the move. I had a job, it was nice, but I felt that I was stuck in a rut. My job wasn't taking me to where I wanted to go. I fell in love with silver as a currency. It wasn't until I was at a libertarian party meeting that I finally decided that I MUST move. After a nice conversation about freedom in my former stomping grounds I approached the libertarian party chair. I asked him "What's going on with the silver economy around here." The answer threw me. I expected the answer to be "not much." Instead I received an answer that suggested that he did not understand my question. That very night I signed the statement of intent. That night it was official: I was a free state project member.

Since I had moving to New Hampshire in the back of my mind I had been saving up money. Now I was even more motivated to save. Money helps anything, and I wanted to have all the help I could get moving to New Hampshire. Signing the statement helped me set specific savings goals and stick to them.

Since I was sure I was going to make this move. I thought another visit was in order. This time I was going to visit for a week. I spent time on various websites trying to communicate with people already based in New Hampshire. I had to go on forums. I hate forums. After much asking around, and a few dead ends, I met people online suitable to my temperament. I made appointments to have lunch with this person on this day, seacoast liberty meetup on Wednesday, welcome wagon on Saturday, social Sunday in Keene. I got in my car and started to make the two day drive to my new home. I got a flat tire before I left my home state. Luckily that only threw me off an hour. I needed a sign in my back window "New Hampshire or bust." Ohh the anxiety, I remember thinking "these people better show."

My visit went better than I could have imagined, except for getting lost now and then. Not only did I do everything I had planned, I discovered more things to do. By the time social Sunday rolled around I was beat. I remembered all the fun I had, but I had yet to understand the help of this visit.

See I had asked around enough to find a liberty lover in New Hampshire who worked close to my industry. I met him for lunch, and he introduced me to a person who I asked for a job, a similar job to the one I had, just a job. My perspective employer said that he couldn't hire me, but gave me his cell phone number. I was tired of getting rejection letters, and E-mails. A rejection in person to a cold visit was refreshing. The fact that I left with a cell phone number was outstanding. My goal was to have fun, not get a job. I went back to having fun.

Then the big day rolled around. It was the day that I had planned to move. I fit all I could in my car. I left behind furniture, and other physical goods I had acquired. My stuff was not worth the cost of the truck to carry it to New Hampshire. I was in the middle or reading Walden then too. I'm sure that influenced my decision to travel "light." A two day drive stretched into three with a few visits to old friends and I arrived at my new home state. Some people call it "the soon to be free state." I had arranged to stay in a porc manor, a house full of liberty lovers established to help people like me move to New Hampshire. It was beautiful, the people and the pond.

The week before I moved I called the cell phone number that I acquired during my visit. I was told there was still no job but he invited me to stop by his office. My first full day as a resident of New Hampshire I intended to look for an apartment, but finding a job would influence where I would want an apartment so I took the invitation and dropped by his office. Before I left one of my many housemates said "I have an office upstairs, let me know if you need to use it." I actually thought that this was a strange offer, and did not know what I would use an office for. After my meeting with my contact I was begging to use this office. My contact had given me a lead on a job; I needed a resume pronto!

The very next day I went in for a cold visit. I was just going to show up. I had had it with cover letters. My housemate helped me get together a bare bones resume, something quick to read, something without distractions. What happened next is almost enough to make a non-religious man like me wonder. I got an interview, a job, another interview, and a promotion, in that order, all in the span of three days.

So now, six months later, I still can't believe that I'm living in New Hampshire. When I think of my car full of everything that I was going to keep possession of, when I think of leaving a good life behind, it's hard to believe the great life that I now have. It would be easy to call it fate, but some of it was carefully planning and making contacts; Some of it is a welcoming liberty community; Some of it is the expanded liberty which brings lower unemployment to New Hampshire; Some of it was not letting fear hold me back; A lot of it was the hard work that brought me to this stage in my life.

LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Budget for disaster

I was taking a look at the United States federal budget. I was able to verify some of the claims I heard. For example, the department of defense, yes it's huge, spends over half a trillion dollars a year. And yes, income taxes are a bigger revenue source for the government than corporate tax, but what really struck me was this pie chart. This pie chart says that the 2011 budget has borrowing as a bigger revenue source than income taxes. All that money we work so hard for, not only is it taken and squandered, but then that much will be borrowed and squandered again. Oh the folly of it all.

But then I took a look at the pie chart for the year 2015. I about fell out of my seat. The 2015 chart shows income tax a even bigger piece of the pie. Combine this with the fact that spending never gets cut. Think about it. This budget predicts that taxpayers will pay a larger portion of an even bigger pie. How much of your income do you think you'll be keeping in 2015? It seems some politician has big plans for it.

False dichotomy

There are many humans in this world who view things in a polar way. In America this is expressed through the words liberal and conservative. I have observed people who consider everyone to be either a conservative or a liberal. Usually they will demonize one and praise the other. It makes no difference which camp the person considers theirself to be in, there's always a tacit assumption that they're bad and we're good. If their ideas get challenged then the challenger is considered to be in the other camp and therefore bad. The discussion is over.

The intellectual depth of this way of thinking is lacking. By taking any issue and considering only two ways to approach the issue, a person has already limited their options. If someone presents a third or fourth way to approach an issue then this new approach does not receive an honest treatment. In any many body system there are an infinite amount of initial conditions that will result in an infinite number of different outcomes. When those bodies are humans, then the system becomes even more complex and unpredictable. Just for the fun, if the system is a quantum system then there are many possible outcomes given just one set of initial conditions.

The only intellectually honest way to approach a problem is to approach the problem with a blank slate, no assumptions. In fact this is the only approach that has yielded meaningful examples. In order to be great, Copernicus had to remove the assumption that the earth was at the center of the universe. Einstein had to throw out basic assumptions about time and space to make his breakthrough. When approaching problems it makes no difference if the problem is physical, social, or mathematical. The best approach is without any assumptions.

The next time you find yourself debating an issue with a friend try to observe yourself. Do you catch yourself putting a person in any one of a few groups. Are you really debating the issue? If you purposely observe yourself debating issues with many different people, you should notice that some people think in the polar way I describe. When you get past the polarity you should be in a very nice position to build some very meaningful friendships with the people who have done the same.

Eat the poor

Many people consider government to be an organization that, among other things, aids the poor. We will present an example where people with more money are helped by government at the expense of the poor.

I am referring to the cash for clunkers program. This program is in fact a welfare program for the middle class. In order to be eligible for this program a person must be able to buy a new car. This excludes the poor from reaping any benefit from the program. In addition the program will destroy used cars. The only cars available to a family of limited means are used cars. It is a simple economic fact that destroying used cars will decrease the supply of used cars and therefore raise their price. The result will be that the poor will pay the bill for all those
"clunkers".

Another sad effect of this program will be the effect on the middle class. Many people will take advantage of this program. Many of those people will go in to debt to purchase a new car. This will add to the already high debt burden that many people face. This incentive distorts the market and causes people to take on more debt when they should be paying off debts. This will delay economic troubles, not solve them.

Go watch a movie!

This week you may watch the movie at the following link.

Taking liberties since 1997

It's about civil liberty violations in the United Kingdom.