Whatever happened to free speech?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by classicalliberal

I just read this story from Reason about how someone who wrote a blog about his results with a Paleo diet cured his diabetes. Basically the state of North Carolina is threatening to go after his blog because he isn’t licensed to give out nutritional information, even though he puts a disclaimer that he isn’t a dietician or nutritionist or doctor.

This is basically what is wrong with this country. You have congress people passing laws that they aren’t really reading. In this case to give some sort of monopoly to an industry by passing licensing, and then you have bureaucrats who seemingly lack the ability to use logic, so they just go after everything they can under the law just to expand their own power.

I found the story extra interesting as I had mentioned how I myself have been eating a primal diet. My parents started the diet a week ago. In the first week my Dad lost 5.5 pounds and my Mom 3.5 pounds and they are amazed that they don’t feel hungry and Mom said Dad’s stomach already looks smaller. I am not a nutritionist but I can say I have seen great results with the diet.

I would like to see the state actually go after his blog if he has enough money to fight it or maybe he could get the ACLU or EFF to take the case. It might be a good way to begin to unroll these stupid licensing regimes in states.

Practical Home Security

Posted on April 12, 2012 by classicalliberal

I finished reading Practical Home Security by Alex Haddox this weekend. I have to say I thought it was a very good read. The book (I bought the paperback but the kindle edition is much cheaper) is a bit on the small side. That being said the information contained in the book is very good and very concise. The book focuses on the practical aspects of security and small changes you can make in your individual life to make yourself a harder target for criminals. The idea as the book lays out is that if criminals want something from you they are likely to get it, but if you make it more difficult they are much more likely to choose an easier target. The book covers Exterior Perimeter Security, Interior Perimeter Security, Interior Security Measures, Apartments, and setting priorities. I strongly recommend this book as I think it has something for everyone in it.

As a side note Alex Haddox was on The Gun Nation Podcast Episode 44. They discussed many aspects of security as discussed in the book as well and it is also worth downloading and listening to.

Nullification

Posted on April 4, 2012 by classicalliberal

Last year I read Nullification by Tom Woods and I found the concept to be pretty fascinating. It was also interesting to me that the popular media refuses to discuss the topic. When you read the book you find that historically it was used to fight slavery. It is hard to argue against that. Unfortunately the concept got a bad rap during the civil rights era since the southern states used it to avoiding extending civil rights to all people. Obviously the federal government opposes the concept as they do anything that limits their power, but reading this story on the Huffington Post gave me some hope. Basically I see nullification as an issue that could unite the Left and Libertarians. The left will favor nullifying federal law when it comes to their pet issues like medical marijuana and Libertarians and Classical Liberals in general tend to oppose the Federal Government doing things outside of the enumerated powers of the constitution. The left tends to look down on the rights call’s for state’s rights until it is one of their pet issues (just as the right is all about states rights until it is for some socially liberal issue that they disapprove of).

Seeing the states ignore Federal drug laws and many states ignoring Real ID with the latest being Pennsylvania looking to reject it. I think Nullification is really the key to reign in the Feds and also to keep people happier in the country. Rather than passing something unpopular like Obamacare and forcing it on people, let States pass a health care law that want one (like Romneycare) and leave the rest of us alone that done. The more things that we delegate to the state and local levels I think the happier everyone in the country will be. Then you aren’t forcing left values on the right or forcing the right’s values on the left.

TSA Trusted Traveler Program

Posted on April 3, 2012 by classicalliberal

So I was reading Christopher Burg’s blog and he linked to a Wall Street Journal story about a TSA program to get the “old level” of screening. While I think the TSA is a complete waste of money and an infringement of our 4th amendment rights until we can repeal with them my choices are either to make travel as painless as possible or not fly. In the interest of making things easier I decided I wanted to get into the Trusted Traveler program. Since I don’t fly enough miles to get Executive Platinum on American and get invited into the program I decided to join the Global Entry program to get in.

Basically you enroll on the website and give a bunch of information and your credit card and then setup an appointment with US Customs and Immigration Service at the airport. I went over to the airport and they were running about 20 minutes late. After I got in, they took my Drivers License and setup the file on me. Then they brought me over took my picture and electronic fingerprints and scanned my passport. They send your Finger Prints to the FBI on the spot (they already had mine from my concealed handgun license anyway) and then within a matter of minutes they told me I was approved. The cool part about Global Entry for someone like myself that would typically take 2-4 trips out of the country a year is that when you return to the country you can use a kiosk to scan your passport and your finger prints and admit yourself back into the country. This is a huge time saver as I have been stuck in the immigration line for 45 minutes before and easily that long in the customs line as well. Typically it takes about 30 minutes to clear immigration here but god help you if 4 flights come in at once.

Then they will be sending me a Sentri card. If I activate that card I am able to drive into Mexico or Canada I can use an express lane and not have to stop at the border. This seems like a good benefit as well for anyone who drives across our border, but given the violence currently in Mexico I can’t see myself taking advantage of this benefit in the near future.

The final benefit and the main reason I signed up was to get into the TSA precheck program. Basically the theory is since they know who you are and know you aren’t a terrorist you can go through an express lane and receive less scrutiny (unless you get hit with a random check anyway). Now if the TSA actually was effective I could see this type of program making sense as the idea being you want to focus on the real threat so if you know who people are and that they aren’t a threat so you send them through the metal detector (of course this assumes that the x-ray scanners actually worked but we have seen issues where people have defeated them), and you send the other people that are unknown through more intensive screening. The problem is when you see the TSA patting down toddlers and 80 year old women meanwhile writing exceptions for Muslims (the only group of people that have attacked flights of late), you can see that they are trying to be politically correct and not really doing anything to secure the flight.

That being said when I travel I want to save time so I wanted into the program. It occurs to me rather than making people spend $100 and join Global Entry it would make a lot more sense for the TSA to allow anyone who shows a concealed handgun license into the program. If you think about it, then you know person has no criminal background and that they have been cleared by the FBI. Unfortunately this being the government logic has nothing to do with it.

The downsides that I can see of TSA precheck is that it is only available at limited airports and only at limited security check points so in a large airport the check point you need for the program might be so far from your gate that the time saved in security may be lost in getting to the gate.

Until we can scrap the TSA and go with effective security (preferably private run by the airlines) this program is worth considering to save yourself the irradiation or gate rape.

More thoughts on Taxation

Posted on April 2, 2012 by classicalliberal

In the same discussion that I was having with my mostly liberty leaning friend who opposed the lottery another mutual friend of ours (a modern liberal) chimed in and mentioned that he thought saying taxation was theft was an extremist statement. I find it amazing how many people see no issue with income tax. I think it is morally wrong, I feel that we should fund the government from excise taxes, consumption taxes, or just a flat revenue tariff of 3-5% on all goods or maybe port fees for goods coming into the country (charge the container ships for using the ports).

Many people will say what is wrong with income taxes? I think first we need to consider Tax Freedom Day. If Tax freedom day in 2011 was April 12, which works out to 27.7% of the year it means the government has claimed more than 25% of your time and productivity for themselves. To me it is just a form of slavery and I think a couple of people have made the case better than I could so I will link to them. Check out The Ethics of the Income Tax which is itself an adaptation of The tale of the slave.

Primal Diet

Posted on April 1, 2012 by classicalliberal

This year for lent I decided I was going to try the primal diet. In the past I have done weight watchers and had success with it. A few years back I had gone from 230lbs to 187lbs on weight watchers. But I found the diet was a lot of work as it really required you to plan everything you were going to eat for the day, the previous day, and it took a lot of careful measurement of portions. In the end I found it too much work to stick with.

I have read a lot of people over at Lew Rockwell who have had a lot of luck doing the primal diet so I decided to check it out. The main book on the topic seems to be The Primal Blueprint written by Mark Sissan. He has a blog over at: Mark’s Daily Apple

For me I have found this to be the easiest and most effective diet that I have ever done. Basically you just cut out all grains, legumes, and processed foods. That leaves you with meat, vegetables, some fruit (not the ones too high in fructose), and dairy if you are lactose tolerant. Instead of being a low fat count your calorie diet, this is a high fat low sugar low carb diet. For me this isn’t a challenge as I am not a big sugar addict anyway, it is nice to have bread or pasta once in a while but I find that I don’t really miss it. On the other hand I do really like meat so the fact that I can eat steak and bacon and lose weight is a huge plus for me.

So how am I doing on it. I have been doing the diet now for a little over a month and I have dropped from 225 to 209. It is extremely rapid weight loss. It is also easy I don’t feel hungry at all on this diet vs weight watchers. I switched my breakfast from cereal in the morning to 2 eggs fried in coconut oil. All in all based on the results I am seeing it really calls into question the whole government food pyramid and the hype for low fat diets. I just don’t see the point, people need to realize it is sugar and grains that make you fat. This should logically make sense as when one considers fattening up a cow it is typically by eating grain, or sumo wrestlers gain their weight by eating a lot of rice. After Easter I don’t think I will stick to the diet 100% as there are some things I am unwilling to give up permanently (Pumpkin Pie). But I plan on trying to stick to it at least 80% of the time.

Lottery more insidious than taxation

Posted on April 1, 2012 by classicalliberal

I had an interesting back and forth with one of my friends on facebook over the megamillions excitement. He was arguing that the lottery was worse than taxation on the basis that it had all these people dreaming of winning while taking their money. I made the argument that it is fine because people voluntarily choose to play the lottery their money isn’t forcibly taken from them as in the case of income tax.

I was a little baffled for a while, about why a person would argue for a coercive position over a voluntary one, but I think I get what he is saying now though I disagree with it. I think the error in his position is he is taking a paternalistic attitude by saying people are throwing money away on this instead of getting tangible things. I am sort of thinking so what, I think if we are to be truly free that means the freedom to waste our money if we want to, and even to say it is a waste could be a stretch. That implies that the excitement of playing and the chance at the prize makes it worth it to them. Who is to say a person doesn’t get $1 worth of value by dreaming about winning. On the other hand I think it is an elitist position to suggest that people don’t know better and shouldn’t be tricked into the lottery. The odds are out there anyone is free to see that the game is rigged against them it doesn’t mean sometimes someone doesn’t want to throw $1 away to take a crack at half a billion dollars? Why not?

Why Classical Liberal?

Posted on March 31, 2012 by classicalliberal

I decided to start this blog to comment on things that I find interesting. Mostly that is going to be things that are related to politics, economics, technology, religion, and anything else that I feel like discussing. I named the blog since that is where I fall politically and I tend to view things through that lens.

Recently I saw an image posted from the University of Common Sense that I feel really captures the state of politics in the US today.

I think we have reached a point where there is almost no difference between the 2 main political parties which is what this graphic suggests as well.

Unlike an Anarchist or my voluntarist friends I do feel there is a role for government and a government that stays within that role can do a lot of good. Unfortunately I feel like the government has outgrown what it is good at doing and for the most part the negatives of what we currently have outweigh the positives. The question is how do we put it back into the constitutional box. I have heard some people suggest taking over one of the political parties and other people have suggested using a 3rd party. I have worked somewhat towards both ends at the same time, but I don’t really think we are going to accomplish anything until we educate people on what the proper role of government should be.