Give me a choice would ya!

So now the Liberals are sending me, at my expense, questionnaires on what I want. It wasn't bad enough the Conservatives send me these constantly, at my expense, with thier silly leading questions pretending to be asking me my opinion.

They gave me a list of new spending ideas; which one do I want? The last one was lower taxes, which of course in deficit situation is new spending too. It clearly has never even been considered by the Liberals that reducing spending is a priority for some people. Not even on their list; let alone a priority.

Sadly under Iggy it appears they will be no different than under Martin and Dion and the good work that Chrétien started (reducing the size of government, well ok letting it grow less fast than the others) is now a dead end with the Liberals. Of course Harper has been a socialist since day one on economic policy - and a failure in so many other areas if the Liberals would move even slightly to the fiscally prudent side they would sweep the nation: maybe even Alberta the way Harper has gone.

People are worried about wasting votes if you vote Libertarian; well clearly it is wasted elsewhere since there is no choice anymore. It's dumb and dumberer and no choice other than socialism. Vote Libertarian!!!

So another nail in coffin is going in place April 22nd. This is earth day, and we are continuing to return the earth to the weeds and the bugs.

Following is my plantaive plead. It goes against editiorial policy of the Era Banner so don't expect it to be published and don't forget with your letters to the editor you can only complain about details: never quetion the overriding policy.

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In yet one more giant leap backwards on Earth Day most pesticides will be banned for most purposes by provincial law. The Era Banner is kind enough to suggest we can pull weeds one by one with our hands to work around this silliness and I guess implicitly we can run around the house stamping out ants and flees one by one. Perhaps two or three hours per day will allow us to stay at status quo.

Despite the clear scientific evidence there is no harm when they are used correctly the highly conservative and increasingly authoritarian "Green" movement continues to force thier technophobia on others through government regulations as the public when given a choice has by and large rejected these regressive ideas. Expect in a short time we will need permits to stamp on any pests. Instead of us swatting the bugs the police SWAT teams will be protecting those dear critters.

What a "Brave New World".

The war in Afghanistan is a failure and it was doomed to be that since the day they lost sight of what they were trying to do (and that was before the first shot was fired). What should have been a commando raid or something surgical to get at a very bad person being protected by an equally bad government was warped into an attempt to nation build by outsiders in a group consensus mode, no chance. Despite that the war's supporters continue to support this morally bankrupt attempt to .. to .. well I'm not sure what the intent given the total confusion of the supporters to be honest but people are dying and I know it is not to "protect my freedom" like Mr. Harper claims. Matter of fact these days it seems Mr. Harper is the main attacker of my freedom.

Here was my reply to the non-reporting over the last two days of the new laws going in from the government we are supporting with Canadian blood and Canadian dollars. This is going against the editorial policy of the National Post so I very much doubt it will be published but I can always hope to be surprised.

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I keep looking for some sign that our Prime Minister is worried enough about the recent legislation that, among other abhorrent things, essentially forces women to have sex with their husbands in Afghanistan to actually do something. I keep looking for something published in the National Post that indicates this is abhorrent to them. I don't see either. I just see stories reporting the facts in a detached sort of way. I do see the comments of people like President Obama who do seem to understand how serious this is. The most I see, in other media, is statements of Mr. Harper saying "We cannot state strongly enough our concern for the rights of women in Afghanistan." This seems true - he cannot - but I think he should.

I understand that both Mr. Harper and the National Post are strong supporters of this war and this is just one more indication of so many of what a total failure this war has been. A war started to catch a bad guy, and after many years the bad guy is still giving NATO the finger in safety and we are now supporting a government that is enforcing his policies.

What does it take to say too many people have died?

Sent to the National Post today - April 9th.

Karen Selick had done a great outline of the libertarian idea two days ago, likely a follow-on to her presentation at the Manning Conference that had so upset the Authoritarians within the Conservative Party of Canada. Of course the authoritarians are solidly in control of that spend spend spend and throw the kids in jail for a single pot plant party. I guess given their heritage with the tax and spend Conservatives in Alberta, which of course is now reaping the penalty of thier huge spending with huge deficit even while the tax grab from the oil industry remains huge for them, this was inevitable. I wonder why so few people see this, that the Conservatives are the last choice for the libertarians. Now the authoritarians are posting their opinion as if it was fact, of course I could not resist that!

It was published, but in such a form I'm not sure I like my name being on it.

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As was predictable the authoritarians were out in force denouncing Karen Selick's presentation of the logic of the libertarian idea by stating thier opinion and resorting to the assumption of artificial constructs to denounce it as a heresy. If the replies are not simply opinion then on a logical basis please define "natural authority" and "incivility"? If indeed there are "common moral bonds" then there would be no need to enforce them on all individuals as they would be common. In the logical sense these terms cannot be usefully defined and so can only be seen as a proxy for personal opinion. If this was just opinion then I, as a Libertarian, say fine your entitled but I have to draw the line when opinion is to be applied to defining how the force that is government is to be used.

Harm to society is said to happen from certain personal choices; but just how can "society" be harmed when society is not a thing? In fact it is only individuals that can be harmed. One of the great powers of the libertarian idea is that it totally removes the mystical (opinion) requirements from the role of government and replaces it with only the logical role; the negative rights theory. Even the partial separation of church and state we enjoy in Canada and some other countries has of course served us as individuals very well and we by and large are rich and fairly free as a direct result. The next step is to remove the rest of personal opinion from the definition of the role of government.

Both writers seem to consider people inherently in need of redemption, but observation is that most people most of the time are fine individuals. If in doubt as to is this true then answer the question are you inherently evil and in need of constant restraint? See how elitist the notion of inherent evil is now; or are you really so much better than everyone else? Logically speaking the proper role of government should leave individuals alone most of the time. The only time restraint is needed is for as the bikers label them "the 1%" who do real harm to other individuals.

Sent to the National Post Sept 9 2008, back when the current recession was news.

On the front page Jacqueline Thorpe proclaims "there are apparently no libertarians in the depths of a financial melt-down". Well other articles in the same issue prove that there are libertarians out there and they understand this was the inevitable outcome of markets that were not free. The global collectivist nature of these actions is going to ensure a situation where the next meltdown is even bigger. But back to the point it's true there are no libertarians "apparently" on page one anyway. Why? I suspect it's because there are so few Libertarians, i.e. libertarians who formally identify themselves as such in the political part of the world. Bob Dylan sang "we live in a political world", and for me anyway that song's refrain is a sad truth. Your not on page one till you are elected so libertarians; get political.

Sent to the Era Banner Nov 15th - ya I'm behind posting :- o
This was a strange thread, some prudes wanted to ban breast feeding in pools "think of the children" - well ya mom was and did the right thing!!)
The letter was not published.

Hi:

I had to chuckle (ok I laughed out loud) at people who try to hide behind shrieks of "think of the children" as was expressed in the letter to the editor over a mom trying to care for her kid's nutritional needs. To think that breastfeeding near pool water is more dangerous than the same kids swimming in the same water with the contents from the other end of the child's digestive system: well let's call it unscientific. Others who in their letters equate topless swimming with nudity, well check the dictionary.

More to the larger issue: people need to learn to control their authoritarian tendencies. Just because they hold a differing opinion on something is no reason to interfere and call in security in bullet proof vests. This was not harming anyone and it is very frankly none of their business and we have enough issues with real crimes without inventing them. Despite years of progress unfortunately women are still held to a more restrictive standard than men and that lack of equality should not be tolerated in a supposedly free society. Even more people dealing with the public should not be enforcing those double standards.