Free Markets Rule

The more I read on economics the more I have come to see that the free market can solve almost every problem. Government has almost no ability to help the economy but has lots of ability to do great harm. By far the greatest economist of our time was Milton Friedman who passed away recently. Before Friedman no one talked about smaller government and lower taxes. In fact most people thought socialism and big government was the answer. Every time we hear a democrat say "tax cut" or "free market" we know how big of an impact Friedman really had. Probably my second favorite economist is Walter E William. Not only does he have great ideas, he has the ability to put them in a way anyone can understand. Below are some of my favorite articles. I encourage anyone who has the slightest interest in free markets and economics to poke around his web page. It is a lot easiser than reading a whole dry book on economics. When I first found it a few years ago, I had one of those WOW moments. He didn't change my view, but gave me confidence in what I already knew.

RESULTS VERSUS PROCESS

THE MINIMUM WAGE VISION

ECONOMICS OF PRICES

ECONOMICS 101

COMMON SENSE ECONOMICS

DISAPPEARING MANUFACTURING JOBS

More Organic?

I want to follow up on my 11/16 post about organic farming. My father pointed out a few more downsides to organic farming beyond the problems of making less food and breaking up more land. To control weeds organic farmers have to go back to the old days of plowing a field. This drastically increases the likelihood of erosion. In other words, much more of Jon Tester's topsoil finds its way into the Missouri river than his neighbor's. I heard somewhere that the recent drought was just as bad as the dust bowl of the 1930's. The reason topsoil didn't blow away and farmers didn't starve this time was because of newer farming practices, practices that organic farmers can't use. In addition to erosion, plowing a field burns vastly more fossil fuels than the alternative. No need to add any final comments, you all get the significance of an "earth loving" organic eating environmentalist consuming a product that uses vastly more fossil fuels.

What am I Thankful For?

Found this on a Billings soldier’s myspace page.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT, A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS, NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE, JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT, IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER, ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING, SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE, THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO OF WHOM I 'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO, THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

I REALIZED THE FAMILIES THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD, THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS, LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY, THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE";

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD, MY COUNTRY, MY HOME."

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT, I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS, SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.

I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER, WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA, IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH, AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."

This poem was written by an unnamed Soldier. The
following is his request. I think it is reasonable.....

PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favor of sending
this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon
and some credit is due to our U.S. service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities.Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us. Please, do your small part to pass on this small seed or remembrance.

Why I am a Conservative - Let us be Stupid

Yet another reason I am a conservative is that I think we should have the right to be stupid. More important we have the need to learn the lessons gained from the repercussions of being stupid. Liberals, in their attempts to “help” people and make sure no one is hurt or offended actually end up removing many freedoms and important life lessons. I saw a good example if this in Scotland recently. Over the last few months I have noticed that may of the headstones in most cemeteries are laying down. My first thought was that some dumb punk kids are desecrating these holy places. But, I have come to find out that the liberal government is actually the culprit. Their reasoning is that some dumb punk kid might be messing around in a cemetery and end up getting hurt from a falling tombstone. To protect these idiots from themselves they are going through every cemetery and purposely pushing over any loose tombstones.


Tell me if I am wrong, but it might be the best thing that ever happened to a dumb punk kid (who should show respect in a cemetery) to have a tombstone fall on him. It just might be the kick in the pants he needs to shape up. A broken bone is a small price to pay for a life on the straight and narrow. I can’t fathom desecrating such holy places just to prevent stupidity. This is one more reason I will continue to oppose liberalism.

They know not what they do - Are you a Liberal

It is my opinion that many people who say they are democrats today actually have little in common with the present views of their party. This is especially true with Montana democrats. It has gone largely unnoticed by the entrenched suporters, but the democratic party has quietly taken a drastic lurch left since JFK. So much so that I believed JFK would today be considered a conservative. According to columnist and radio host Dennis Prager:

• “Kennedy advocated four major positions -- lower taxes, expanded military, the use of American power to fight evil, and the centrality of God to American life and to morality. Liberals and their political party, the Democrats, have since rejected each of these positions, all of which are now considered conservative.”

Dennis Prager and his readers have come up with a list for people to test their beliefs against the current dominant liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Do you believe the following?

1. Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for minorities.
2. Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.
3. Murderers should never be put to death.
4. During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.
5. Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.
6. It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.
7. Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.
8. It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.
9. Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.
10. A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.
11. The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.
12. The present high tax rates are good.
13. Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values.
14. The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.
15. The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.
16. It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.
17. No abortions can be labeled immoral.
18. High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.
    
19. Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.
20. Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.
21. It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation.
22. No culture is morally superior to any other.
    
    Those are all liberal positions. How did you answer?
    

Past this on to your Liberal friends and put them to the test?

Tester, Organic, Smugness?

The Billings Gazette relates this exchange between President Bush and Tester:

• "We had pictures taken with him," Tester said. "It was kind of like, 'Hi, I'm Jon Tester and my wife, Sharla.' We mentioned we were organic farmers from Montana. He said, 'We look forward to working with you on the farm bill.' "

OK, this might be a low blow, but I am getting sick of Tester always saying he is an "organic" farmer. I never hear my father say he is a "normal" farmer. Does being organic in some way make Tester better? Yes I know there is a large part of Testers constituency that have orgasms when they hear the word organic. Ironically, these are the same people who say they care more about hunger, poverty, and the environment. Yes there is a contradiction that I will explain shortly.

Let me clarify my position on organic food. From the vantage point of a farm kid, I love organic because it takes land and makes it much less productive, which decreases the food supply and increases prices. Now this is great for the farmer, but bad for the consumer and the poor. Another side effect of less productive organic land is that more land has to be broken up from its "natural" state to grow the same amount of food. This is something I would think an "environmentalist" like Tester would oppose.

Tester's smugness about organic is also exemplified by what he farms… wheat. I do somewhat understand (though I don’t necessarily agree) organic is good when it comes to fruits and vegetables. These items often get sprayed directly with chemicals. But when it comes to grains, they are typically only sprayed in the plants infancy (and not at all if the farmer had good weed control before planting), long before the seed is even formed. In my opinion Tester is touting a term that is meaningless to what he raises therefore increasing his “smugness level” (this will make more sense if you watch South Park)

The simple fact is that if all farmers went organic, food would cost much more (which mostly hurts the poor) and less land would be left “natural” (which only hurts environmentalist’s feelings). If you ask me, my father is way more of a humanitarian and environmentalist than his organic counterpart. From now on my dad should introduce himself as, “I am a non-organic farmer and I feed more poor people than Jon Tester.”

Who Controls the Dems?

Just to keep track of the other side (and to get a good laugh), years ago I put myself on Michael Moore’s e-mail list. He recently sent out a sarcastic mailing that had a list of promises to conservatives.

• I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Most of the items are easily defeated distortions about conservatives used to mask his destructive views, but two items really stuck out:

• 8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
• 9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

It is surprising to me that with all the advances in science that have shown how early in the womb a baby has a heart beat and brain function, liberals still insist life starts at birth. I think Moore makes it clear that with this new found control they will continue to allow partial birth abortion. I hate to be gruesome, but let me remind you of the truth. A baby is yanked part way out of her mother’s womb, a hole is poked in her head and her brains are sucked out. I am bewildered by anyone who thinks these people aren’t radical.

Moore also makes it clear they plan to take away all handguns and semi-automatic guns (I assume Moore is just ignorant as automatic guns are already illegal).

I believe most Montanans, regardless of party do not agree with these views. For years people like Moore were relegated to the fringes. They still are in the Republican Party, but they have made a big come back in the Democratic Party. So much so that they now run the party as evident in Moore’s line, “I and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress”. The Democrats are beholden to the extreme of their party and this will be more and more evident over the next few years. I hope middle-of-the-road Montana Democrats will help us conservatives to push these people back to the fringe.

Tester Proves Limbaugh Right.

Tester and Anderson Cooper had this exchange on CNN:

COOPER: Rush Limbaugh said that Republicans lost this election but not conservatism. And this is what he had to say about the Democrats in this election, quote, "They advance no agenda other than their usual anti-war position. They have no contract. They really do not get specific. Their message was one of, 'vote for us, the other guys have been in power too long.'" Is that fair?

TESTER: I really don't care much for labels. I don't think they -- they provide -- I don't think they provide good leadership, quite frankly, so to call somebody a liberal or a conservative or whatever really doesn't get us where we need to go. Where we need to go is to find the common ground, working together. As I went around the state, everybody had basically the same problems, they weren't all Democrats, they weren't all Republicans, but they all had the same problems, that's why we need to work together and really change direction of this country and I think that's what this election said to me.

Cooper quotes Limbaugh as saying the democrats have no plan and no policy. Tester replies by saying he doesn’t like labels when Limbaugh didn’t even use any labels in the quote. Tester had a perfect opportunity to talk about his agenda, but instead he changed the topic and spews meaningless nonsense. The reason is that democrats can’t talk about their agenda. If they went around saying we want higher taxes, we want open borders, we want Al Qaeda member to have constitutional rights, we want abortion on demand, and we want far left Supreme Court justices they couldn’t be elected dogcatcher. Instead they just repeat hollow statements like “common ground” & “change in direction” to trick a war weary public into voting for them. Can anyone say want the democrat plan is for Iraq?

How would Al Qaeda vote

The old media keeps talking about the latest al qaeda tape, where they claim to have 12,000 terrorists in Iraq. I say, how convenient, the greatest fighting force in the world is also there to kill them. That is until the dems pull us out and the 12,000 terrorists are freed up to sneak into our country. There was another tidbit in the tape that isn’t getting nearly as much coverage as the 12,000 terrorists claim. Al qaeda also stated, “The American people have put their feet on the right path by realizing their president's betrayal in supporting Israel….so they voted for something reasonable in the last elections.” So al qaeda thinks the democrats are “Reasonable”. Any reasonable democrat should take a little pause after hearing this and reflect a little about their recent vote. I promise you will never catch me voting for someone al qaeda thinks is “reasonable”.

Why I am a Conservative - Downfall of the Family

Yes I know this will reveal that am a political dork, but I often find myself writing political speeches in my head. I see something on TV or read something and a few hours later a tirade has developed. I don’t even remember what got this one started, but I do know that it feels good to put it in black and white.

Yet another reason I am a conservative is because I see that the government welfare state has failed miserably. Welfare touting liberals really do mean well. What they don’t realize is that in almost every case their 10lbs of government help also created 15lbs of hurt. Liberals have the best of intentions but create terrible results.

Let me ask a question to illustrate my point. If the same amount of money the government has spent on poverty over the years was instead given to private charities and religious groups would there be more or less poor people today? I think most people, conservative or liberal, would answer that charities are better at helping people. So why do liberals demand that the government take 10lbs of help from the tax payers and redistribute it in an ineffective way. I have no idea the answer, but I do clearly see the 15lb of hurt in the downfall of community, church, and family in America.

In the past community, church, and family helped the poor, sick and downtrodden. Nowadays many people just pay their taxes and feel like they are off the hook to contribute to their fellow man. As the government under the direction of our liberal friends has attempted to solve social problems all three of these great institutions have fallen. When people get help from their community they feel humbled and make connections with caring people that can help them break the poverty cycle. When people get help from a church they get exposed to a positive foundation that can carry them out of poverty. When people get help from family they feel supported and have a great incentive to improve. But, when they get freebies from the government they feel entitled and have no incentive to not ask for the next check. The liberal “great society” had the greatest of intentions, but what has resulted is the downfall of the foundations of America. We have spent over 8 trillion dollars on LBJ’s great society to try to help people, yet we have just as many poor and way more moral decay.

The fall of community and church breaks my heart, but the saddest and most damning for our future is the downfall of the family. Because liberals have forced assistance to come through government, people feel less responsible for their family. Families who used to live close for support and guidance now just meet for holidays. Grandparents watching the kids has been replaced with daycare. Children tending to their elderly parents has been replaced with rest homes funded by Social Security and Medicare.

People used to have kids as an investment for the future. The author Vedran Vuk said it better than I can, “These people survived under a basic principle in life. You take care of your kids, and one day, they will take care of you. You knew that one day your children would take care of your needs as you took care of theirs. This created many incentives that produced a healthy family. For one thing, you had to be somewhat nicer to your children and make sure that you instilled good values. Children without a good work ethic or good values are not likely to perform well in the job market. A parent would have to teach these values to children to insure his or her own needs at a later time. Responsibility to the family ranked highly. Without this ingrained in a child, he or she might grow up one day and never return the nurturing given by parents early in life.”

I am a conservative because we believe in community, church and family not government. We measure compassion by how many people no longer need help not by how much we give to how many people.

RIGHT wing tirade

I love politics and often need to vent. This is the begining of a my RIGHT wing tirade.