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Posts tagged with "politics"

A political blog

I'm really not looking forward to the election in November. I'm fascinated with politics, but at the same time I so dislike both major parties that I can't help but be a little dismayed with people just go out and vote for the shitty status quo again. People bitch about how much things suck, but yet they keep going into the polls and voting in the same two parties again and again. Neither is better than the other. Both are concerned only with keeping themselves in power, and in doing so limit our personal freedoms.

The Republicans claim to be for smaller government, but yet under their power in the last years, it's gotten bigger and bigger. I'm all for tax cuts like they did, but you have to match tax cuts with a reduction in spending, and they don't seem to understand that. According to the Laffer Curve the government should get more money into the coffers with a lower tax rate, due to the cost of engaging in financial activity being cheaper, like a sale at Wal-Mart moves more TV's. This however doesn't take into account when our government is bleeding money through a bullet hole caused by redundant and unnecessary programs, a ludicrous amount of Pork, and a inefficiently managed war.

Another problem with the Republicans, is the religious aspect of their decision making. I have no problem with elected officials being religious, but they have to realize that the government, as intended by the constitution, is to be secular. The end result is the government limiting our personal freedoms based on dogma that certain groups don't believe in. Granted there are exceptions to these observations, such as
Ron Paul.

The Democrats are more focused on limiting our financial freedoms, and are keen on pushing the idea that they are all for diversity, but fail to push the only diversity that actually matters, which is diversity of thought. There are definite shades of Marxist groupism in their ideology, and if you stray from your designated group, you are called a traitor or worse, an example being a black republican. They claim the right is racist, but aren't preconceived grouping notions such as this tantamount to racism?

The left also favor wealth distribution, affirmative action (which is also inherently racist), hate crime legislation (which is essentially making thought a crime, and that's a very slippery slope), big overarching bureaucratic government, limits on free speach (the right is also guilty of this), and a top-down command economy.

Like they said on South Park, it's like trying to choose between a shit sandwich and a bag of douche.

This is, of course, just a very simple overview of a very complicated situation. I continually vote third party, and I always will, but I don't think third parties have a chance unless the corrupt elections laws, that were put in place to keep the two headed monster in power, by the two headed monster, are reformed.

Frank Zappa on Crossfire

Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Exercise vs. Genetics

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Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Gun Control

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Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Holier Than Thou

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Penn and Teller: Bullshit! The Bible

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Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Recycling





I love Penn and Teller. It's a sad state of affairs though, when the best political commentary comes from magicians, and cartoonists.

Stephen Colbert on 60 Minutes Part 2

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Stephen Colbert on 60 Minutes Part 1

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The Great Thanksgiving Hoax

The Great Thanksgiving Hoax
by Richard J. Maybury


Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.

It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.

The official story has the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620-21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.

The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving. Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.

The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.

Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now."

Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.

Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and thankfully, we live in a country where we can have them.
* * * * * Mr. Maybury writes on investments.

This article originally appeared in The Free Market, November 1985.
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