Reality TV can hurt

This poor woman. I enjoy some reality TV, but makeover shows tend to bother me a bit. I'm all for the ladies on "The Swan" transforming themselves, but I always wonder what happens to them if they don't get selected to move on to the paegent. I had never considered what would happen to the women if the producers pulled the plug in the middle of the process. Apparently all the producers are required by their contracts to provide is a plane ticket home...sad.


Home Delivery Fails to Deliver

Klamath Basin Water Rant

This is in response to an Op/Ed piece by Felice Pace. You can find it here.


Written November 11, 2004

Emperor Felice has no clothes

Mr. Pace is correct in his assertion that the Justinian Code considers the waters of the Earth common to all. However, the Justinian Code does not levy any responsibility for its protection on the public. While the code may be part of the base of our system of laws, there are many things contained within it that we have chosen to discard.

For example, the Justinian Code makes constant reference to slaves as property. I would hope that Mr. Pace believes that it is utterly wrong to own slaves, yet he admonishes Mr. Connelly for his desire to “abolish this jurisprudence.” By that logic, we should all once again begin acquiring slaves. I think not.

The Justinian Code also states that “wild beasts, birds, fish and all animals” become the property of the person that captures them. Yet Mr. Pace speaks of the virtue of the Endangered Species Act, which prevents this very act of capture from happening. In this situation Mr. Pace himself unequivocally advocates abolishment of the Justinian jurisprudence.

The Justinian Code specifically states some of the rights granted owners of rural estates. Included among them is the right of drawing water. Mr. Pace strongly argues against this. Again, the worldview held by Mr. Pace conflicts with the code he has used to admonish Mr. Connelly.

I would imagine that Mr. Connelly agrees that responsibilities go along with property ownership. For years irrigators have taken steps to reduce their use of water. It not only makes good business sense, but most farmers and ranches take their stewardship role seriously. Were a landowner willfully and maliciously to harm the land or water, there are already laws in place to punish them.

The fact that Mr. Pace seems to forget is that Mr. Connelly IS the public. Mr. Connelly’s neighbors are the public. Every rancher and farmer in the Klamath Basin is the public. The public does not only consist of those that agree with Mr. Pace. From a “public benefits” perspective, Mr. Pace has no more right to determine what they are or how to achieve them than Mike Connelly does.

Mr. Pace, we all live upstream too.

Election 2004 Rant

Written July 1, 2004

Driving to my newborn son’s first pediatrician appointment this morning I caught a bit of talk show host Rusty Humphries. His topic of the day was whether or not I am charged up for George Bush yet. Being conservative radio, the answers were typically resounding yeses.

I, however, am not. I’m 28 years old and what you would call a disenfranchised voter. I’ve cast a presidential vote only once in my life, for Harry Browne. After some of his September 11th comments, I found myself regretting that one. I think I’ll be voting for Richard Prior.

So much talk is made regarding the red/blue gap in this country. But what about those who don’t fall under either color? What color would the networks give a state that voted Libertarian or Christian Democratic or Green (that one I think I can guess)?

The media, as well as the Blues and Reds, believe there is some deep divide. Those of us without a color realize that the country isn’t as much blue and red as it is purple. George Bush has been spending himself Blue in the face. By not monkeying too much with the economy, former President Clinton seemed more Red than W does sometimes.

There are obvious differences that can be seen on the Red/Blue map. The most obvious is that Gore supporters (inferred to be Blue Democrats) were largely urban dwellers while Bush supporters (inferred to be Red Republicans) were typically rural dwellers. From an ideological standpoint, there are strong differences between the two. From a practical standpoint, Red and Blue office holders are pretty much indistinguishable.

Every time a new president is about to be seated, the Reds and Blues start in with the screaming. The Blues scream that Bush lied about the war. The Reds scream that Kerry’s war service shouldn’t really count because he took advantage of the three and out rule. Funny, just four years ago the Reds were screaming about Clinton’s lies and the Blues were screaming about Bush’s service in the Guard rather than Vietnam.

Blues think it is acceptable to kill a baby in the process of coming out of the womb, but think it cruel to kill a fish for any reason. Reds feel it is OK for you to light up a paper tube filled with tobacco, but fill that paper tube with a plant they don’t like and you should be put in jail and the government should confiscate all of your property.

The only difference I see between Red and Blue is what they choose to be hypocritical about. “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is continually abused by Blues; “…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” abused by Reds. “The powers not delegated to the United States…are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,” disparaged by both to increase their power and pursue their agenda of the Congressional session. I could go on, but what would be the point.

If I had talked to Rusty, I would have had to tell him that I probably won’t be voting for a President again this year. The media, the Reds, and the Blues seem to believe that there are only two choices. To vote any other way is to waste your vote.

As a little ‘l’ libertarian, I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a candidate that I do not believe will do what is best for this country. I cannot vote for a candidate that believes in one portion of the Constitution but not another. I cannot vote for a candidate that puts career before job responsibilities. I cannot vote for a candidate that supports some of my views but holds beliefs antithetical to some of my others. I will not vote for a candidate so that another won’t win. So again this year, Montgomery Brewster gets written in on my ballot somewhere.

If you feel the way I do, then on Election Day sit down and rent some Richard Pryor movies.

Miscellaneous Rant

Written April 9, 2002

Man is made up of two parts: his spirit and his body. Both of these are controlled by his mind. They are separable only by your choice, though liberals and conservatives both refuse to believe this. You know that conservatives believe above all in free markets and freedom to produce wealth. You know that liberals believe in personal freedom and personal choice. Neither is true.

Think about this for a moment. If you truly care about how much money you have in the bank, do you spend freely? No, you control your spending. If you care about your house, do you let it fall apart? No, you take control of its maintenance.

People control those aspects of life that are core to their being. Politicians and intellectuals of both the right and the left are the same. They seek to control that which is important to them. Conservatives do not care whether or not you are free to produce to your potential. They only care that you are a good Christian that has never smoked pot or had an affair. Liberals do not care if you are a mean drunk or sleep around. They only care that you contribute your fair share to their cause.

To the conservatives, your spirit is what is most important. They seek to indoctrinate you into their view of morality. You will go to church; you will not look at porn; you will not do drugs, or be an alcoholic. Whether you make $50,000 or $50,000,000 is not important to them. They seek your soul for this is how they will control you.

The liberals value your body. They want whatever you can produce for them. If you cannot produce, then you become their poster child and produce for them in that capacity. You will give them funding, or you will bring them funding. To them this is the only choice you have. You can destroy your mind with drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever, as long as you can bring them a buck. They seek your body above all else.

Both of them have the same goal: to split you down the middle. Liberals hate concepts such as private property because it is a direct acknowledgement of self, which they seek to destroy. Conservatives want you to accept their God because that shows your belief that someone other than you controls you, making it easier for them to do so.

The parallels between these two schools of thought (if you can call it that) and events of our past are striking. Conservatives and the Taliban are, at their core, one in the same. They both seek to enforce their morality upon you, only conservatives are better at it. Liberals and Hitler were of the same ilk. Both sought to give ultimate power to a collective, ruled by a few elites.

Randian Rant

Written April 5, 2002

We've often had conversations with other people regarding why our money should go to support others against our will. The standard answer is something like "because no one else will," or, "it's the right thing to do." Our standard reply is to ask why we are not entitled to the wealth we create. This question is almost never answered and usually gets us accused of selfishness. This is not a sentiment that a truly moral man would take as an insult, but I will get into that later.

I have finally found the irrefutable truth at the core of our stance. To get there you must ask yourself the opposite of our question of retaining our created wealth. Ask yourself this: "Why am I entitled to the wealth I create?" Without truly examining the nature of your self, you would answer with "because it is mine," which is a fine answer when faced with mental midgets. However, when faced with an intelligent being of opposite views, you may be unprepared for their arguments. To defeat an enemy of this sort you must get to the core. I have found it, and now give it to you. "No one else can make my mind work."

Simple, isn't it? An irrefutable absolute. The only way for anyone to fight this statement is to reveal and come to terms with their own nature (that there are no absolutes, and thus no reality). Once introduced to this concept of an absolute they are reduced to a blithering idiot talking to walls.

I cannot make you understand this absolute, but I can point you in the direction. When you find it, you will realize that you are a slave by your own choosing and that the time is approaching for you to take back the whip. When society tells us that we need more money for Social Security, healthcare, nature, etc., they come to those that create wealth saying, "We need your wealth and our need is a valid claim on that wealth." You pay your money because they have the guns, the courts, the prisons on their side. They can ruin your "life".

But can they? They can take your body or your job or your home. That is what you mean when you say that they can ruin your life. By making that statement, you abdicate your true self. You make an equivalence between your self and those things your self creates. True, they can take those things, and they are important for they are your creation, but they cannot take your self without you willingly giving it. This is why being called selfish should be a compliment.

They want you to make the equivalence of your self and your possessions. By doing so, you buy into their system of thought and validate their being. But understand their true nature; they have no self and thus want you to have none either. Because they have no self, they cling to a collective to give them identity. This is why they believe that "the people" or "the children" are more important than any individual. You have a concept of self and should be prepared to defend it.

You are a slave to them by your own conscious choice. You choose to support their flawed system even though you know it is flawed. You work for them and their claims that your ability is subservient to their needs. But will their need put food on the table or pay the power bill or build an airplane? Are you willing to continue to put food on their table while your ability to put food on yours continues to be eroded?

This is the choice you have made, but it can be changed. The time will come to take back the whip. The time will come to show them that ability is not the slave of need, but the fulfiller. The time will come to withdraw your mind from their flawed system and show them that without your ability to leech off of they cannot exist. They will realize that by violating the absolute of ability over need that they create an absolute from which they cannot escape; death.

When the minds have been withdrawn from society, when no man chooses to show ability because he knows he will be eaten, life will become what it was meant to be. Finally a world will exist where all present know that no one can force another's mind to work, and thus have no claim on its products.

Miscellaneous Rant

Written March 4, 2002:

Pure, unadulterated self-interest. Self-interest drives all important decisions in life. Merriam-Webster defines self-interest as a concern for one's own advantage and well-being. 401(k) investments are based on self-interest. Religious fanaticism is based on self-interest. Socialist public policy is based on self-interest. Trying to get someone engaged in those activities to admit that fact is, quite probably, impossible.

I, however, have absolutely no problem admitting it. Choosing our own political and social interactions are one of the few freedoms we have left. The Free State Project aims to restore those freedoms we have lost, and are losing. Why does fedgov suddenly feel it has the power to tell me how to invest my 401(k)? Why does fedgov tell farmers in Klamath Falls, Oregon that fish are more important than they are? What ever happened to the Tenth Amendment?

Miscellaneous Rant

Written on February 21, 2002

I’m in a black mood today and feel the need to vent.

I wonder when people forgot that the Constitution begins with the words “We the people” We seem to have forgotten the definition of the word people. People used to be a collection of individuals with common attributes. Today it is a jumbled mass, faceless and incapable of thought. Politicians used to serve the will of that mass; today they control it. The larger the mass grows, the harder it is to hear the voice of the individuals within it.



Fear controls politics.

Responsibility and freedom rule no longer. People live in fear of all sorts of things today. We fear that we are destroying the planet, not because the evidence supports that conclusion, but because that is what we are continually told. We allow our government to pass increasingly heavy taxes because Social Security or medicare is at stake, instead of forcing them to remove the pork from the budget. People even vote out of fear these days. They vote for the mainstream candidate in the hopes that the bad guy won’t win. Fear even controls our daily lives. People don’t challenge their boss out of fear for their jobs. People don’t discipline their children out of fear of lawsuits and court battles.

We are not a country of sheep, as some may claim, but of ‘possum. We play dead to present the weakest possible target to those we are afraid of. We no longer stand to fight, backed up only by the courage of our convictions. Instead we hide out of fear of retribution.

In today’s world, Whites are made to feel guilty, Blacks are made to feel like victims, Latinos are made to feel like intruders, and Arabs are made to feel like terrorists. Our leaders tell us this. Former President Clinton says without saying that Whites are evil because their ancestors may have owned slaves, President Bush says without saying that Arabs are evil because they practice Islam, Jesse Jackson says without saying to Blacks that even though he achieved on his own, other Blacks cannot. With this daily assault on us, how can we ever expect to react without fear?