I love Facebook. It's given me a chance to see just how many outright socialists and borderline communists and fascists there are in America. People my age who grew up during the cold war and who, at the drop of a hat, would have denounced such things as evil and inhumane now advocate it with every breath. In fact I've had people tell me that free markets and no social programs is what would be inhumane. I wish they'd make up their minds.

An old high school colleague of mine said to me: "we all have to sacrifice for the greater good". Which of course is a quote taken directly from Obama . That's another thing I've noticed about the socialist class: they don't think for themselves. Everything they say is a sound bite, a statistic or a quote from someone else that has been washed into their brains. There's no actual reason or logic to their arguments just feelings and other people's thoughts.

"We all have to sacrifice for the greater good" is also a hallmark of collectivism which puts any kind of group (such as a class, nation, race, society, state, etc.) before the individual which, by definition, is the hallmark of socialism, communism and fascism. Wow!

Now this is the point where some readers will say: Coop's got his head in the bottle again; to which I'll reply: so what? Just because I drink and the members of government wear suits and ties, have Anglo-Saxon names and drive a Ford doesn't mean they aren't socialist, communist or fascist. It's the new face of fascism brought to you by America.

Did I mention that my colleague is a public school teacher? Moving right along.

I had another colleague say to me that she didn't mind getting violated a little bit by the TSA when they subject her to a body pat down.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into it with TSA trolls at an airport security checkpoint. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard: "you give up your rights when you enter the security area".

Really? After entering a TSA security area I no longer have any rights? I no longer have a right to live? Does the TSA feel that it's perfectly within their power to kill me if they want? I no longer have a right to my private property? Does the TSA feel that it's perfectly within their power to steal my things? Of course I don't believe that nonsense but my former colleague seems to and has no problem "making the sacrifice for the greater good" and feels that I should too. Did I mention she too is a public school teacher? Seeing a trend here? Moving right along.

More recently a gentleman on Facebook posed to me that I was being naïve if I thought that private charities could address all the people in need in this country and that's why we must have government social programs. When I first read that I thought to myself: I'm out of whiskey. That statement is so incomplete, so shallow, so narrow minded that I wondered if this guy's head could fit in a jar. Where to begin pulling such a ridiculous statement apart?

Welfare frauds costs taxpayers billions every year. At what point do you ask if the benefits outweigh the costs? The costs cannot simply be ignored and the merits of the program judged solely on the perceived benefits.

And what about the benefits? Since the inception of welfare, welfare recipients have found ways to cheat the system and rather than spending their taxpayer dollars on the necessities until they can get back on their feet they spend it on alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets. So you have to ask yourself what benefit is that to the recipient? How is that helping them? It's not; in fact it's hurting them by enabling their bad habits. Many of which may be the very reason for their economic situation and the need for welfare in the first place.

I'd say that anyone believing that any version of a government welfare program is a net benefit to society is clearly the one who is naïve.

In any case there are obviously those that either choose to ignore the facts surrounding social programs or they simply don't have the intellectually capacity to understand it.

Still others I believe make a conscience effort to block it out like a bad night of drinking when you wake up broke and with a pocket full of ATM receipts and you can't remember how you got home.

I get it too. I understand why people wouldn't want to face the truth about the government that is supposed to be protecting their rights: it's scary as hell! Those who have managed to unplug from the matrix may recall the day that the first ray of clarity entered their stream of thought, cracked their old conditioned mindset and their life has never been the same. It's literally like seeing the light. It's like the first time you let a slinky go down a staircase. You want to find out how many other cool things you can do with it now. It's like a whole new world has been opened up to you. You see the world in a way you never have before. And then the fear sets in. The fear that you've just realized that everything you've ever thought was true about the government and America was a lie! The fear that the government is the greatest perpetrator of crimes and injustice in our society and around the world. But it's too late now, you can never go back. You know the truth and it's sad, even heartbreaking.

You realize that: America really isn't NUMBER ONE! Americans really aren't FREE! America really isn't a DEMOCRACY! The wars were never really about DEFENDING AMERICA!

That's enough to drive anyone to drink. That's why I drink.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

Recently on ABCNews.com there was an article entitled: Women vs. Wal-Mart. It was an article regarding the misogynistic tactics used by Wal-Mart in a systematic attempt to oppress women in the workplace. Or in their words: "women were uniformly disadvantaged." That is to say, women were victims again.

The article goes on to point out that "Christine Kwapnoski of Concord, CA. told her boss at a division of Wal-Mart that she wanted a job promotion," but she didn't get it and didn't like her boss's response, so she decided to sue.

Really? SHE told her BOSS that SHE wanted a job promotion? Wow, is that how it works? I had no idea. Let me go upstairs right now and tell my boss I want a promotion and see how that works out for me. And if he refuses or gives me some smartass remark, then I'll sue him for discrimination against unprofessional, irresponsible, rude, and arrogant employees. We are certainly a minority and need protection by the federal government, otherwise how will we ever get, keep, and be promoted within a job? In fact, as an employee I want to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and not even have to work if I don't want to but still get paid. I want to be able to decide my own work schedule. Can the government make that happen for me?

She’s lucky she wasn't fired for insubordination. Her rights to work were not violated and she has no right to be promoted, but now Wal-Mart’s rights are going to be violated by being forced to hire and promote women just because they’re women — not because they’re the right people for the job.

You see, Christine is a victim — just like the blind guy hired by UPS I met the other day at a trade show. He and his UPS manager were looking for special software with the ability to read text and convert it into audio. UPS hired a blind guy for a job that requires the ability to read!

(It's happy-hour somewhere in the world, right?)

The article goes on to correctly point out that: "[this case] will likely encourage an avalanche of new class-action litigation on a broad array of subject matters, beyond employment issues." Of course it will. America is a litigation nation. Any group of people, and I mean ANY, who can organize and raise enough financial capital can then — thanks to the government's legalized bribery, I mean lobbying — influence the government to pass legislation that violates our rights, imposes harmful economic constraints, and does nothing more than transfer wealth from those willing to earn it to those who aren't.

That's how Title VII, the federal law that prohibits sexual discrimination, came about. But of course Title VII isn't really about sexual discrimination, as Walter Block has pointed out many times. If it were really about sexual discrimination in society, then all heterosexuals would be guilty by discriminating against members of the same sex in their personal relationships as would homosexuals be guilty of discrimination against members of the opposite sex.

Hooters too would be guilty of sexual discrimination by not hiring men to wait tables; Victoria's Secret has no male sales associates; strip clubs have only female dancers; the LPGA only allows female golfers; NOW, the National Organization for Women, doesn't represent men at all; and the list goes on.

The differences between men and women are all around us and it would be economic suicide for any business to ignore them. That's why restaurants have a men's room and a lady's room, why Nike has a men's division and a women's division, Schwinn makes men's bikes and women's bikes, JC Penney has a men's department and a women's department, there is Playboy and Playgirl, gynecologists and…well, you get the point.

Discrimination between men and women is a part of life. Hell, even our own language makes the discrimination. That's why we have words like man/woman, mom/dad, brother/sister, aunt/uncle, bride/groom, boy/girl, sister/brother, grandma/grandpa, and waiter/waitress — clearly discriminating between the sexes. Is the English language in violation of Title VII? Some would say yes as the assault to homogenize the language has already been politicized and created gender neutral words such as server, salesperson, and flight attendant. I guess eventually a wife won't be a wife but rather a life partner and a girlfriend won't be a girlfriend but rather a friend with benefits.

The crux of the women's lawsuit against Wal-Mart is that women had been paid less than men in comparable positions. Walter Block has written extensively on this issue and found that those wage disparities, although they exist, cannot be attributed solely to male chauvinist pigs — that the differences between men and women in the work place must be considered. In fact, it would be irresponsible and negligent on the part of a manager not to.

David Kramer also points out the absurdity of the argument that businesses, able to cut their costs so significantly by hiring more women, still don't because they are just so innately misogynistic. Their inferior view of women far outweighs their own desire to do well in their businesses' bottom line. Nonsense.

For example, if a newlywed woman applies for a position that requires a multiyear, long-term commitment, should the fact that she could become pregnant (intentionally or not) be ignored? Should the impact on the company and, therefore, the livelihood of other employees be discounted? The physical effects of pregnancy affect women in different ways. Some are out of the office for long periods of time before, during, and after the pregnancy. And what about her maternal duties after the birth? Doesn't waking up at night to breastfeed take a toll on the mother's sleep? (The father obviously can't breast feed.) What if it's twins? Men, on the other hand, have none of these concerns in the workplace.

I know people don't like facts. They really muddle up the "victim" argument.

And what if a manager were to discriminate based solely on sex? What if he is a misogynist of the nth degree? Does he not have a right to be a jerk? Of course he does. And if his manager likes his hiring decisions and the company is profitable, then he's doing what's expected of him. Who would be better off by discriminating in favor of women just because they are women?

And what if two employees, one male and one female, are up for a promotion and the manager feels they are both exactly equal? How then should the decision be made? It has to be based on something; it has to discriminate on something. What should it be then? Who's taller? Who's "nicer"? "Who's a Steelers fan"? In PC America it will most likely be made based on who is more likely to file a frivolous law suit if not chosen, and that will be the woman.

The bottom line is that when multiple people apply for a job or a promotion, the decision maker has to ultimately make a decision and that decision will be discriminatory since he can't choose both at the same time. So what should that discriminatory decision be based on and who has the right to dictate what it should be? I know who it shouldn't be: the employees up for the job or promotion.

These women feel differently though. They feel they're different. They feel they "deserve" more. They live in that land of nod where life is all rainbows and unicorns and gosh darn it what the grown-ups in the real world are doing just isn't fair.

And that's why I drink!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

Government nonsense, broken logic and stupidity abounds.

Take, for example, that in most states the government says that a person can't drink alcohol until they are 21-years-old. Why 21? No one knows just some arbitrary number that has changed many times over the years demonstrating there's no reasoning to it. But not to adhere to it is a crime.

But at eighteen they are considered an adult (except at Florida theme parks where my 12-year-old is considered an adult and daddy pays full price) and are then given the "privilege" to vote, join the military and legally kill people in war, but cannot legally drink a cold beer. Why eighteen? No one knows just some arbitrary number that the government has decided officially makes a person an "adult." From eighteen on a person is also given the "privilege" of entering into marriage sanctioned by the state and to procreate with another of the "privileged" class, but still no cold beer, damn it! You don't want that criminal conviction on your permanent record. That record will follow you around for the rest of your life and you'll never be able to get a "good" job.

Luckily, I'm over twenty-one and have a good job so this is the part where I start drinking.

At seventeen, with parental consent, a person can join the military and legally kill people in war but cannot vote, procreate, nor legally drink a cold beer. Why seventeen? No one knows just some arbitrary number that the government has decided shouldn't carry as many "privileges as the number eighteen.

At sixteen then, a person, still considered a child by the government, is considered responsible enough to drive a motor vehicle — considered a deadly weapon in all 50 states — but cannot vote nor join the military and legally kill people in war nor drink a cold beer. Why sixteen? No one knows, just some arbitrary number that allows children to operate deadly weapons on our streets.

At fifteen then a person is considered responsible enough to drive a car with another licensed driver, which could be a 16-year-old who got his license yesterday, but he cannot vote, legally kill people, nor have a cold beer. Why fifteen? No one knows just some arbitrary number that coincides with the rebellious stage in adolescent development. What better time for them to be behind the wheel of a car with their high school friends?

(Footnote: their high school friends can get beer.)

At thirteen a boy's voice changes and his manhood arrives. That is to say: mother-nature considers him mature. The government, as everyone knows, knows better than mother-nature, though, and will tell us when someone is mature.

What does mother-nature know anyway? She doesn't even know that she and her planet are sick. That they are dying and the governments of the world are doing all they can to save her. Certainly we can't leave such important decisions to her. But I digress.

Speed limits are another bit of nonsense. The government will tell us what is the one and only maximum safe speed on any given highway. But doesn't that speed depend on a number of other factors such as: weather conditions, volume of traffic, condition of the car, condition of the driver, time of day, etc.? And certainly those factors vary from situation to situation. One driver may be driving in the rain, or the snow or on icy roads. Another may be tired or the car may be old and in a state of disrepair. Yet another may be in heavy traffic at night whilst another may be in light traffic during the day. Doesn't every driver have the responsibility of making the best decisions regarding a safe speed given all those factors? And doesn't the fact that the state has issued us a driver's license mean that we are to be trusted with making just such decisions? If not then why have they let us on the road behind the wheel of a deadly weapon? What if there's a street with no speed limit posted? Are we to stop and call for help? Moving right along.

Lastly, for fear of beating a dead horse, and running out of bourbon, I'll finish up with the stupidity of laws such as j-walking which is still enforced today in Georgia, Florida, Seattle, Las Vegas, and no doubt many other states and cities. J-walking is a law that assumes that we as a society are such dolts and idiots that we can't be trusted to safely cross the street on our own, so the government is going to build a cross-walk with a light to tell us where and when to cross the street. But if we are a society of dolts and idiots and we have a government of and by the people, then doesn't that mean we have a government of dolts and idiots? And didn't George Bush and "Dick" Cheney prove that? He shot someone in the face?

And that's why I drink!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

Whether they realize it or not Americans live in a constant state of fear every day. I'm not referring to the fears of everyday life like losing a job or having an accident of some kind, but rather a more sinister and devious fear; a fear that Americans only dare talk about around the water cooler or at cocktail parties so as not to be taken seriously; a fear they try to mask with a with a whimsical tone of sarcasm or indifference. Whether Americans want to admit it or not, it's the single greatest fear in their lives: fear of the government.

Right about now there are those reading this thinking: Don Cooper is a drunk. To which I reply: what's that got to do with it? Maybe more people should drink if that's what it takes to sober up and confront what they are really afraid of.

In their defense, I'll admit that reality is scary. No argument that living in delusion is warmer, safer, cozier, and easier. Pretending is always more fun than reality, that's why we go to the movies. But fear of the government is a fear that invades a person's soul and — since the government intervenes in every aspect of our lives — it affects every move we make every day.

Fear of the government is hard to recognize and acknowledge. It's a fear that we are taught early on in life and to which we become accustomed. We inevitably end up tucking it away in the far reaches of our minds in order to function "normally" every day and live our lives. But just as a car backfiring will trigger a sense of fear from a shell-shocked veteran, so too can the State trigger that sense of fear they've instilled in us.

One need only ask: when you see a cop in your rearview mirror with his lights on, do you feel a sense of safety and comfort or do you get a shot of adrenaline from your body's "fight or flight" reflex? Do you immediately start asking yourself what he could possibly pull you over for, other than the fact that he was abused as a child, bullied at school and his mother didn't love him, and now he's going to whittle away at that chip on his shoulder by abusing you.

As you search for your proof of government permission to drive (i.e., your license), and your government permission to own the car ( i.e., your registration ), and your proof of government mandated insurance, do you do so calmly and with a smile on your face and with gleeful anticipation of speaking with someone who gives of himself to serve and protect you, or do you do so nervously, fumbling through your papers hoping everything's up to date and acceptable to him for fear of being detained for whatever reason and having it affect your job, your family, and every aspect of your life?

And when it's all over, do you feel glad that it happened or are you just glad it's over? Later that evening do you recount the story to others with a sense of pride, or do you do so with a sharp tongue and kick yourself for all the things you wish you would have had the presence of mind to say at the time but didn't? Do you feel happy that you have to pay $150 to the government because you were driving down the street faster than the government allows you to, or are you angry?

And in the end, do you send the money to the government even though you don't agree with it? Even though you feel it's unfair to have to pay so much money yet you've harmed no one? Of course you do. And why? Because you're afraid of what the government will do to you if you don't. In the end, you'll retreat back into your cubby-hole of delusion in order to justify paying the fine by convincing yourself that what you did was wrong, the government was right, and you deserve the punishment.

My favorite delusional argument from those still attached to the matrix is that they pay their taxes voluntarily. To these people I ask: when you do your tax returns, do you take as many deductions as the government will allow you? Of course, the answer is always yes. Then I ask them that if they could take enough deductions such that their tax liability was zero would they do so? Again, not surprisingly, the answer is yes. I then ask them that if their preference is to pay zero taxes then why don't they simply refuse to pay taxes. Inevitably, that's where their train of thought always runs out of track. Of course everyone knows the answer: because they're afraid of what the government will do.

I challenge everyone to ask themselves: when was the last time you even thought about the possibility you might be robbed, your house broken into or shot at? Can you even remember? Now ask yourself when was the last time you were afraid of doing something that could be deemed "illegal" by the government and for which you could be fined, detained or arrested? Something like not wearing a seatbelt, speeding, making a U-turn, going through a yellow light, not crossing the street at the cross-walk, riding a bike on a sidewalk, forgetting your license at home, taking too many deductions on your taxes, talking on your phone while driving, not allowing strangers to touch you or your children at the airport, cutting down a tree on your own property, owning and transporting a gun, collecting rain water and the list goes on. I would wager the answer is: daily! The first word out of everybody's mouth when asked a normal, completely benign question these days is: "Well legally …" It's first and foremost on our minds, and why wouldn't it be, there are 76,000 pages to just the federal register alone. Some argue that everyone commits at least three felonies every day!

Ignorance is a dangerous thing, and it must be stopped in our lifetime, fo' it kill somebody.

At the end of the day, all government mandates are enforced at the end of the barrel of a gun, and that scares the hell out of everyone, as it should. But if we truly believe we are free then we have to start acting like it. It's time we cared about something bigger than ourselves. It's time we stopped living our lives in fear.

Having said all that, I'm not holding my breath. It's proven to be difficult to convince people that freedom is more important than the real housewives of New Jersey.

And that's why I drink!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for work last Monday and scheduled to fly out to Atlanta that night with US Airways. Everything went fine, of course, until I got to the airport and encountered the security freaks of the TSA. Whenever I go through TSA security I always look for the line that doesn't have the AIT scanner and I get in that line. This time, however, I was "randomly" selected out of that line and told to go through the AIT scanner. Of course I immediately opted out.

I was then told that I would have to have a pat-down to which I replied: "ok, but I don't want you touching my genitals or my ass." Not sure of what he just heard the TSA flunky asked me to repeat what I had just said, to which I replied: "I don't mind if you do a pat-down as long as you don't touch the junk or the trunk." Okay, I had been drinking.

Of course, such irreverent talk to a federal divinity is not permitted in the land of the "free," so the circus began. Immediately a supervisor lap dog was summoned along with a super-duper supervisor lap dog and two of Sherwood Forest's finest. The supervisor lap dog told me I wouldn't be flying since I wouldn't let them touch my beans and franks. Yet another TSA troglodyte took my driver's license and boarding pass and began writing me up for after school detention as at least three other TSA trolls began rifling through my backpack and shaving kit looking for the meaning to their useless lives. I have to wonder why they were searching my personal affects if I wasn't going to be allowed to fly. I guess I'm just not smart enough to understand the really important things in life.

After completing his report — a copy of which I was told I could not have so I have absolutely no idea what he wrote about me and the incident — the troglodyte scribe gave me my driver's license back and eventually the other trolls finished sniffing and drooling over my panties and I was escorted out of the security screening area.

From that point I proceeded up to the US Airways desk where I explained the situation to the clerk in hopes of receiving a voucher or even being rescheduled on a flight the following day. After I laid it out to her she replied: "Oh I know who you are, Mr. Cooper. The TSA is on the ball and just phoned us about you."

My first thought was: since when is US Airways on the federal payroll? She went on to spew every nauseating cliché in the book: the TSA is just doing their job; the TSA makes us safer; you have to sacrifice some freedom for increased security; most people don't mind; barf, puke, gag, spit, hurl, yak. And that lady gets to breed.

I said I wanted to speak to a supervisor and eventually I did. Well, when I say a supervisor I mean a garden gnome. And although he didn't spew clichés he did look at me with a dull, blank stare as if he had purposefully put his brain into hibernation until I finished talking. And when I did, he replied: "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do."

At that point I felt as if I had done everything reasonably possible to resolve my situation with no satisfaction. I had reached my limit of ignorance, incompetence, stupidity, and arrogance. I honestly felt I had been backed into a corner and had only one way out: I went to have a drink.

I'm in the process of trying to find someone to take my case in suing the TSA for violation of my right not to be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure which is protected by the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States and paragraph VIII of the Pennsylvania state constitution. Ultimately I want to sue US Airways as well for the cost of my plane ticket, hotel, car rental, and whiskey.

Even worse yet was, after getting to the hotel I got on Facebook to "blog" about my experience. The first response was from an old high school colleague who wrote: "Geez, Don, what's the big deal? I don't mind getting violated a little to be sure I'm safe."

High school was an awkward collection of events for me and I never really felt like I fit in with those people. I can even say that ever since then I've harbored a small desire to ultimately be accepted by those folks. My contemporaries; my childhood classmates. But now that weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I realize now why I didn't fit in: they're idiots.

And that's why I drink!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

Better late than never though; my neighbor has a smoking hot 1969 Mustang convertible that has been restored to near mint condition. I on the other hand drive a 2006 Ford Escort. I don’t know how my neighbor obtained such a cherry ride but as you said: redistribution of wealth is just being fair so I’m going to redistribute his car to my garage tonight after he goes to bed. I’d do it during the day but I don’t know if he’s read your article today or not, so he might get upset if he hasn’t. Better to just do what is fair and worry about the rest later. Honestly, I’ve wanted his car since the first day I saw it but was struggling with the morality of forcibly taking things that don’t belong to me, until I read your article that says it’s okay.

Your article has given me so many ideas: we are a single income household and most of my friends are two income households, so those guys are way wicked wealthier than me. I think I’ll go sit down with some of them and discuss how much money we have altogether and then suggest that we divide it up equally amongst us. If they insist on being unfair assholes and not voluntarily redistributing their wealth to me and my family, then I’ll just quote you and take it without their permission. Unfortunately, some people in America are just selfish like that.

I can’t tell you what a profound impact this revelation is going to have on my life. Having just had an expensive surgical procedure and not having health insurance I was planning on paying for it out of my own pocket but now I see how un-fair that would be to me and my family when there are so many others in America with more money than us.

It would also seem that I am off the hook for my student loans now as well. I can simply keep putting them off until I die and let the government pay them off for me out of redistributed wealth.

This also changes my whole outlook on life and work. What a fool I’ve been for so long, taking personal responsibility for myself and busting my ass through school and my career in order to ensure that I’d always have the necessary marketable skills to earn a livelihood and provide for my family. When all along what I should have been doing is lobbying politicians like you to just do what is fair and give me more of other people’s money. It would seem all that college education didn’t make me very smart.

Also, I think this is a fantastic opportunity for you and your colleagues in Washington to prove to the electorate that you are a man of action. Considering the median household income in the U.S. last year was $67,000 and your annual income as vice president is almost $270,000 now is your chance to just do what is fair and redistribute three-quarters of your income to 3 other families so you 4 all make about the same income in 2010. What a great day for America. Could I also ask a favor: could you pass this letter along to the Clinton’s and John McCain for me? With their combined net worth of $100 million plus I think it would be beneficial to a number of American families for them to know how to make things in America more fair as well. I wish I could be there when those families get their money.

All kidding and sarcasm aside, all I can say in response to Mr. Biden’s comment is: I’m done. I am so done with this government. I am ashamed of this government. How ridiculous was that to say? How socially irresponsible? How socially destructive? How unconstitutional? How un-American? It ranks right up there with comments like: "Sarah Palin for president." So it’s obvious that our vice-president advocates taking wealth from those that have it to "spare" — I guess Joey will be the one to decide what that means — and giving it to those that don’t have as much. I challenge anyone to try and convince me how that is in any reasonable way different from the communist manifesto: Karl Marx — "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

I’m also tired of that lame old political rhetoric that there are "unfortunate" people in America who need help and it’s "American" to help those in need. If it’s so damn "American" then why aren’t American’s helping them voluntarily? Why must the government intervene and force Americans to do what they say is inherently "American"? I’ll tell you why: because the kind of help the government wants has nothing to do with being American. I think American’s are some of the most magnanimous people on the planet, but they also want the freedom to choose their own charitable endeavors. And with every dollar the government taxes us to "just do what is fair" is one more dollar that Americans don’t have to be charitable with. Furthermore, if the government doesn’t run a welfare state then they risk losing a large, dependent cross-section of voters come election time. Now we can’t have that now can we?

Certainly there are those in our society that have fallen upon hard times due to no fault of their own, but I say they are the minority of minorities. The majority of the "unfortunate" ones sat right next to me in public school and are in the economic situation that they are in due to the decisions they’ve made throughout the course of their lives. Some would call me an asshole for expecting people to be responsible for their own lives and dealing with the consequences of their actions and in response I’d say that they are the assholes for feeling entitled to the fruits of the hard work of others.

I can’t tell you how sad it is to me to realize how many socialists and borderline communist-thinking people there actually are in America in 2010. It’s only been 20 years since the fall of communism in Europe and people are talking here now as if it never happened. As if the volumes and volumes of historical evidence on socialism and communism don’t exist. As if a society of social programs, entitlements and redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots is a just, moral and productive society.

The government blatantly and brazenly takes control of auto manufacturers, banks, insurance companies and now they want to control health care and millions of people don’t see anything wrong with that. So few are saying anything.

I don’t even recognize this country anymore, and I’m sure it doesn’t recognize me.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, business analyst and father.

Don Cooper Archives

After spending nearly a decade abroad living and working in Europe I found myself returning to a country I didn’t recognize. I found it difficult to acclimate and integrate into this politically correct, socially abusive, statist society; a society that seemed to be desensitized to police abuse of all magnitudes. The prevailing attitude seems to be: if the cops have someone in custody then they must deserve it.

Almost immediately I was confronted with the abusive nature of the new state order: driving to get a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning in Syracuse, NY, I was pulled over for talking on my cell phone. Having only been in Syracuse for 3 months I had no reason to believe that such a law existed. Regardless the doughnut feeder pulled me from my car, patted me down in the street, and put me in his car while he ran my license and wrote out the citation. It was humiliating and I felt like a common criminal.

I was determined to fight the citation, but my contract ended and I left Syracuse. Eventually I paid the $100 fine.

Just recently I moved to Princeton, NJ, to begin a new short-term contract. This past Saturday evening I rode my bicycle to the Princeton University campus where there are a number of pubs and restaurants. My intent was to get Chinese takeout and go back to my room off campus.

As I rode down the sidewalk on famed Nassau Street on this clear, cool March evening, myself and others were startled by a Mercer county patrol car blazing its siren and lights and darting into the sidewalk ahead of me. My first thought, of course, was: what could be going on? It wasn’t more than a few seconds until I got the answer to that question. The short, well-armed female officer exited her cruiser and with a firm right hand, outstretched arm and condescending look in her eyes, she looked dead in my eyes as I approached her and exclaimed: "Stop!" I kid you not.

Of course, this is one of those situations where anyone still in possession of a fully functional frontal lobe thinks to themselves: what could I possibly have done? The responsible answer is, of course: nothing. Reason and responsibility, unfortunately, rarely seem to figure into a tax-feeder’s thought process. As it turns out, it is illegal to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk. Even more ridiculous is the fact that it’s only illegal in a 4—5 block section of Nassau street AND only on my side of the street. At least that’s what she told me.

Given my survival training learned from LRC and other sites, I immediately knew how to handle the situation. The first thing I said was: I do not consent to any searches of my person. Of course, this riled her; she immediately replied: "why, do you have something to hide? When you say that you seem suspicious." Of course this would be her response since in her mind, as she sees herself as anointed by God herself, and anyone not wanting to cooperate with a servant of the almighty must be immoral and hiding something. Actually, I saw myself as being accosted by a total stranger imposing on my freedom of movement, and was no more willing to consent to an invasion of privacy by her anymore than I would any other stranger accosting me on the street. I told her that I didn’t trust her and was simply exercising my constitutional rights. That made her even angrier. Cops hate it when mundanes say things like that.

I couldn’t help but think that this whole situation could have been avoided if only her father had loved her more. But I digress. Continuing with her irresponsible and abusive activities, she called for backup. Backup for a guy riding his bicycle. When she did that it instantly became clear to me that we were on the other side of the looking glass and tea was about to be served.

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When her colleague arrived, he approached me and said that the law was the law and they were just doing their job. Of course at that point my first instinct was to pull his underwear up over his head and smack him for being stupid. But I didn’t. Instead I pointed out how the German officers at the Nuremberg trials also used the defense that they were just doing what they were told to which he rolled his eyes as if to say: where did this nut-job come from?

As the female cop completed the citation, I made a point of letting all folks passing by know that the situation was because I was riding my bike on the sidewalk. The first baby-boomer couple to pass by commented: that’s a shame. The sidewalk is the safest place for a cyclist to ride. Of course I agreed.

Obviously this is just another example of abusive law enforcement in an effort to extort yet more and more money out of the productive people in our society in these hard economic times, in order to keep the non-working class in business.

I have a court date on March 23rd at which time I will plead not guilty and I imagine I’ll receive another court date to plead my case. My position on this issue is simple: I cannot condone this sort of socially irresponsible behavior on the part of the state. It’s been made clear to me that I have no say in anything the state does, so I am forced into a corner from which I shall fight my way out. I won’t contend that I am not guilty of breaking the law but rather that the law itself is immoral and to cite me abusive, period.

I certainly cannot take the position of: let me just pay the citation and go along to get along. By doing so I would be condoning these sorts of reprehensible practices, which I do not. This particular issue is so clearly unjust that I have no problem "going to the mattresses" in fighting it. I can’t think of anything more insulting to me as an American as this sort of affront to my God-given rights of existence.

Those police officers ought to be ashamed of themselves, but I know they are not. Like so many in America — myself included — they no doubt believe in their righteousness. But one has to ask: do you really feel free anymore? Do you find yourself in public constantly wondering if you can cross the street here or there? Whether you can ride your bike on a sidewalk? The shoulder of the road? When you see a cop car in your rearview mirror, do you feel safer or do you get a short shot of adrenaline and start wondering what he could pull you over for? What’s your speed and what’s the speed limit? Did you signal when you changed lanes? I think we all know the answer to that question.

I’ve already arranged for bail on the 23rd when things go badly. Remember, always do what you know is right, even if the government says it’s wrong. And the government will always say it’s wrong. That’s how you can know it’s the right thing to do.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

Mr. Brown, however, was an intelligent and reasonable man and he refused to give into this kind of extortion. He neither wanted nor needed economic protection from this u201Corganization.u201D He simply wanted to do with his own private property what he wished while providing a service to the community that the community wanted.

Within a short period of time two gun-toting u201Cagentsu201D from the u201Cthe organizationu201D showed up at Mr. Brown’s business, locked him in handcuffs and took him to jail. That’s right jail, because the u201Cagentsu201D were from u201Cthe organizationu201D known as the IRS.

See taxes and other business fees in America are not voluntary. Whether a business owner feels he can benefit from paying these taxes or not and therefore decide for himself whether he wants to participate in the governments social programs is irrelevant. They are mandatory and anyone’s refusal to pay them is considered criminal.

Extortion is defined as occurring when a person unlawfully obtains money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. And coercion is defined as the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force.

So the key to extortion is that it has to be through u201Cunlawfulu201D means. Federal and state and local governments can engage in extortion because it’s not unlawful if they do it. They make the laws and so they make laws that say then can coerce money in the form of taxes and other fees from the public thereby making it legal, but only for them. Make no mistake about it: taxes and other fees on businesses and people are coerced. Just ask yourself: if you weren’t afraid of being arrested and going to jail would you pay: income taxes, social security taxes, Medicare taxes, property taxes, car registration fees, driver’s license renewal fees, traffic tickets, sales taxes, surcharges, state taxes, city taxes, excise taxes, luxury taxes, estate taxes, usage taxes, gift taxes or any of the other hundreds or thousands of ridiculous taxes and fees that exist on the books in Washington? Of course you wouldn’t and no doubt most have spent their fair share of time complaining about this very thing. Therefore, whether Americans realize it or not the government is using coercion to stock its coffers.

This inescapable fact then leads us to one inescapable conclusion: the federal government, along with their state and local counterparts, are nothing more than organized crime; a crime being, from the perspective of the people, some entity imposing an unwanted cost of some sort on them without equal compensation. Of course this is exactly what happens when the government taxes people who do not want to pay the tax because they have reasoned that they have no use for the service the government claims to provide with the tax. For example: people being forced to pay into social security and Medicare when they would rather keep their money and make their own retirement investments or people who don’t fly, paying for the FAA and TSA at airports, people who home school their kids paying for the Department of Education, people who don’t drink or smoke paying for the ATF. The examples are plentiful.

It’s tantamount to paying u201Cprotection moneyu201D to the mob. The government says you have to pay these monies so they can look out for your welfare and if you don’t then they can’t guarantee your welfare because they will arrest you and throw you in jail.

The logic of them looking out for my welfare is an illusion as well. How is my welfare improved when I am coerced into paying taxes to the Department of Agriculture who then pays farmers not to farm in an effort to prop up agricultural food prices for the farmers, consequently causing agricultural food prices in the markets to go up? I’d rather not pay my fair share to the DOA and let those farmers farm and compete against one another so I can have lower food prices. Then my welfare is improved.

Regardless, Americans are not free to make these decisions for themselves. This is not opinion but rather cold hard fact. We also have no say when it comes to implementing new taxes or getting rid of old ones. Whenever the mob decides it wants to create a new tax it simply does it and everyone is forced (coerced) to pay it.

The government will counter with the argument that without all the u201Cnecessaryu201D taxation that it wouldn’t have enough money to operate all its programs; to which we would say: correct, you need to discontinue all your programs because we don’t want them, we don’t need them.

On the surface the government would like us to believe that they are our moral compass. That they know what’s in our best interests better than we know ourselves as absurd as that is — and so they are going to look out for us despite our objections. All we have to do is give them our money and they will do with it what’s best for us. Of course underneath it has nothing to do with our best interests but rather with accumulating political capital and money for themselves and their party.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

Most people I come into contact with on a daily basis fall into this category and whenever we discuss airline security and I propose airlines being responsible for their own security the response is so Pavlovian, so reflexive that that I can almost beat them to the punch: oh we can’t have that. The big airlines don’t care about your safety; they just care about making money.

I almost laugh just writing that. True, I have to admit, most people don’t go into business with the goal of losing money so I have to concede that point.

Such statements reflect so clearly, so poignantly, just how ass-backwards people in this country have been taught to think. They have literally been programmed not to see things as they are, but to see them the way the government wants them to see them. They assign the government some sort of place of social superiority; an organization that, in certain situations such as airline security, is the only organization that can protect Americans from the bogeyman.

How simple is it really to consider such a proposition and realize how completely absurd it is?

First of all, the contention is that the private sector is either too greedy, to immoral or too inept to sufficiently provide airline security so the government is going to do it. Where does the government get the people to do the airline security? From the private sector; moving right along.

The private sector is full of firms specializing in security with people who are experts in the field and who compete against one another for work. The government hires people who have absolutely no experience in security of any kind and gives them basic training on how to recognize objects in an x-ray machine, how to do a full-body pat-down or how to do their explosive powders tests on a laptop. And they compete against no one. Once you’re in you are in for life as long as you don’t quit or kill someone.

If a private sector security firm fails in providing adequate security to a client, the firm is penalized which can lead to financial losses, legal action and possibly the failure of the firm. If the TSA fails to provide adequate security it leads to increased funding at taxpayer’s expense and employment of yet more unqualified security personnel in order to address the now identified security hole; has anyone other than me opened that bottle of Jack yet?

A private security firm represents their own interests as well as the interests of their client. They must add value of some sort to the airlines they work for or else the airline will lose money in the form of fewer passengers, law suits and the like and the security firm would risk losing their contract with the airline. The TSA represents no one’s interests. They will never suffer any sort of financial or fiscal penalties based on their performance since their revenues are forcibly taken from Americans rather than earned. Unlike the private security firm, the TSA has absolutely no incentive to care about what kind of job they do. In fact the more security loop-holes that are identified the more money they are appropriated and the larger they grow. Precisely the opposite sort of incentive any rational person would want in an organization solely responsible for their safety. Just think about that for a second: the worse they do their job, the more money they get. Note: if you are out of Jack, Jim or Johnny can help clear the intellectual fog as well.

Furthermore, the more and more resources the government takes from the private sector, the more and more resources the private sector does not have that could be used for private airline security. Eventually it will reach the point that even if airlines were given the u201Cprivilegeu201D (privilege here meaning a right the airlines had all along but that the government has taken away) to do their own security there wouldn’t be the resources with which to do it. The government raises these sorts of barriers to entry and competition in the private sector all the time and effectively has a monopoly in airline security. That should scare the living s__t out of anyone given what we’ve just discussed about the backwards incentives facing the TSA.

If airlines were responsible for their own security then the costs of airline security would only fall to those that fly and the specific costs would fall to only those flying with a specific airline. Those costs of course would differ and passengers would be free to choose (remember when we had freedom of choice in this country) how much they are willing to pay for security. The costs of the TSA, however, falls to everyone, whether you fly or not and regardless which airline you fly with.

Lastly, and most importantly, private property rights and civil rights are protected in the private sector whilst they are regularly trampled on by the TSA. Given my confrontational nature I’ve had my share of run-ins with the TSA. They regularly grab my laptop off the conveyer belt and walk away with it asking u201Cwho’s laptop is this?u201D I remember in kindergarten I was taught that taking other people’s things without asking permission was rude and mean. I learned as an adult that it’s also against the law, unless of course you work for the law makers. I’ve had TSA managers tell me to my face: u201Cyou have to give up some of your civil liberties in order to have added security.u201D They’ve told me: u201Conce you put your things on the conveyer belt you’ve given us permission to do with it what we want.u201D I’ve been told: u201Cif you leave the security area and have forgotten something, then it becomes property of the TSA.u201D Of course, regardless of which airline you choose to fly with you are subjected to these sorts of affronts to your private property and civil rights.

If each airline, however, were responsible for their own security and you didn’t like the way you were being treated or if you felt your private property or civil rights were violated then you would have recourse. Depending on the nature of the incident you could have legal recourse or you could simply choose to fly with another airline that you feel better respects your rights as a person; anybody ever try taking legal action against the TSA? End of story.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

How many people have been arrested and imprisoned for selling goods and services that are not u201Capprovedu201D by the federal government? Our prisons are full of such people who have harmed no one socially, economically or physically but whose freedom has been taken away by the state for giving people real choice. If one were to see such a scene in a movie about communist Russia, no doubt Americans would cringe and utter something about the abusive nature of communism. When it happens in the U.S. then Americans assume the person in question must have deserved it otherwise why would he be in prison.

A lot of people don’t realize that during communism in countries like Romania, they held presidential elections as well every so many years and the people were told that they could u201Cchooseu201D the president. Thing was: all the candidates belonged to the communist party so there would always be a communist president and communism would persist. In order for someone from the communist party not to be elected, a second party would somehow have to get on the ballot and in 1990 this finally happened.

The sad, disappointing and frustrating thing is that we have the same situation here in America but the pixy-dust-sniffing majority in this country doesn’t realize it. Last presidential election I voted for the candidate of my choice, Ron Paul, and the state of Georgia threw my vote away because Ron Paul was not an official state-approved candidate. He had not done what the state decided he would need to do to be on the ballot so therefore he was not considered an u201Cofficialu201D candidate and was not on the ballot. If you chose to vote for him as a write-in, then they simply did not count your vote.

How is having only two major parties who are always on the ballot and an election system designed by the state to keep those two parties in power and which makes it almost financially and logistically impossible for other parties to get on the ballot so much different from the communist system of having only one party on the ballot and an election system that makes it financially and logistically impossible for other parties? There’s no freedom of choice in selecting our government. We as Americans are constantly voting for the lesser of two evils and seem to be content to do so.

Well how about in the market place then? Surely we must have freedom of choice in the market place. Look at all the choices we have to choose from. Unfortunately, this is a big negative as well. Just because there are a hundred different types of food or drugs, for example, from which to choose, in reality you can only choose from the ones that the state has approved for you.

The FDA is a federal agency with an annual budget in 2010 of $3.2 billion and is planning on hiring another 1,200 new employees to help construct the list of state-approved food and drugs (see, the government can create new jobs).

Now I’ve heard the argument a thousand times: sure the FDA is a government agency and it’s not perfect but without an agency like the FDA there would be harmful foods and drugs on the market that people would voluntarily choose to purchase and people could be maimed, sickened and even die. We need the FDA. Regulating food and drugs is too big a job, only the federal government has the resources to do it. Thank God for the FDA!

This argument assumes a couple of things. First, that the FDA has found the gold at the end of rainbow so the government already has the financial resources necessary to pay for their activities and so that money doesn’t have to come from the people. Secondly, that the FDA is in fact not staffed with people from the same social pool that says the federal government already has the necessary resources to regulate food and drugs but rather with wizards that posses special magical powers that the rest of us don’t and can somehow determine the u201Cgoodnessu201D of foods and drugs for human consumption. It assumes the FDA doesn’t even need humans to determine the human effects of foods and drugs. They can simply dip a piece of litmus paper into a sample and if it turns red then it is not state approved.

Of course this is not the case. The FDA has only the resources that they take from the private sector in the way of taxes, debt, inflation and manpower. Furthermore, it conducts clinical trials on humans who volunteer to participate. Basically, that means that the FDA gets volunteers to try new foods and drugs and then they sit back and watch what happens. If the volunteers have bad side effects, like their heads turn purple, their hair falls out, they are maimed, sickened or die, then the FDA disseminates this information to the public and the food or drug is not approved for sale in the U.S. and so people have no choice: they cannot buy it even if they wanted to.

Compare this to a new food or drug appearing in the market place and people voluntarily choosing to buy it and consume it. If people have adverse side effects to the new good then this information will be disseminated naturally by the market and people will choose to stop buying it.

A famous example of this was the Tylenol poisoning case of 1982 in which someone went into stores in the Chicago area and laced extra strength Tylenol capsules with potassium-cyanide. The first death occurred on September 29, 1982. Within 6 days, and completely of its own accord, Johnson & Johnson had recalled all its bottles of extra strength Tylenol with a retail market value of some $100 million. By November of the same year, Johnson & Johnson had already re-engineered its pill bottle packaging — a new triple-sealed package — and within a year Tylenol was once again a major competitor in the market place.

What was the FDA doing during this time? Sitting on its hands trying to figure out who to blame and seeing what kind of new packaging Johnson & Johnson came up with so they could copy it and modify their food and drug packaging regulations accordingly and take the credit for keeping Americans safe. As with any government agency, the FDA didn’t want this crisis to go to waste so they also used it to expand their budget and payroll. After all, with the new regulations they would need more people and money to enforce them.

In the end the FDA cannot do anymore than the market can do in identifying harmful foods and drugs. In fact, historical evidence shows that the market does a better, faster and more efficient job of identifying these things than the FDA. The FDA is always one step behind the markets. Reacting and taking the credit at a cost of $3.2 billion to the tax payer and limiting real freedom of choice in America.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

With all the talk recently about the (in)effectiveness of the TSA, I’ve engaged in discussions about the issue of the government trying, unsuccessfully to provide adequate airport security for a country of 300 million and some 28 thousands daily flights. My proposal is always the same: each airline should be responsible for their own security and then individuals can choose to pay higher fares to fly with airlines with better security measures or choose to pay lower fairs and fly with airlines with fewer security measures. The response I get to this proposal is always the same: I don’t know about that.

It seems to be embedded in people’s psyche, almost genetically, that the federal government is in fact the only entity in our country that can and should do certain things for us and the broken logic associated with this thinking boggles my mind.

First of all, what incentive does any TSA worker have to ensure our safety? If you work for the federal government you have a job for life and beyond just as long as you don’t quit because you will never get fired, especially if you are a minority working for the TSA. The TSA according, to John F. Kennedy’s executive order 10925, is legally obligated to work to affirmatively retain minorities not fire them.

This, of course, is not the case if airlines were responsible for their own security. People get fired from private companies all the time and if those responsible were found to be negligent in their work and costing the company economic losses then they would be fired and someone else brought on to replace them.

Furthermore any problems with flights for airline X would be public knowledge and passengers could simply choose to fly with another carrier whereas the federal government takes great pains to hide the myriad of problems associated with federal agencies in an effort to make people think they are safe. Of course even when problems are identified, public agencies like the TSA don’t accept any responsibility and simply get congress to force Americans to give them more money since more money always solves the problem. Meanwhile, passengers have no choice in the matter. They must rely on the TSA for ensuring flight security even though they have no incentive to do so. That should scare the s__t out of anyone.

It only makes sense and any successful business person would agree: if you have one large group of people, like the TSA, monotonously working day after day, and with no economic incentive to do so, to screen hundreds of thousands of people they are going to get bored, distracted and be unmotivated. Whereas if each airline were doing their own security then you would have a small group of specially trained individuals hired specifically by the airline solely for this purpose, screening only those passengers flying with that airline and with a valid economic incentive to do a good job.

Even more ridiculous is the attitude that somehow the federal government knows best; that they should be our moral compass. The argument is that individuals in our society are too irresponsible and too stupid to know what’s good for them and private firms are too greedy so the people in the government will regulate society to ensure the u201Crightu201D decisions are made for our own good. The broken logic here is painful: the people in our government come from that same social pool of individuals and business owners that they contend are irresponsible and greedy! What happens when they are elected or appointed to office? Are they suddenly endowed with some sort of immaculate wisdom that emanates from Washington? Are they somehow no longer part of the irresponsible and greedy class but rather part of the enlightened class?

Truthfully, any knowledge that the federal or any government has is already known in the private sector before the politicians even know it exists. We dummies know it way before the enlightened ones do. They get the information from the private sector and then re-disseminate it to us and then take credit for it.

In the case of the TSA, my wife and her aunt and I are just three people and the weekend after Christmas we all traveled by plane. In just our small little group at least two TSA security breaches were committed: my wife and her aunt got their boarding passes mixed up and the TSA screener didn’t catch it. My wife had her aunt’s and her aunt had hers and they passed through security no problem. Secondly, when I departed from the Atlanta airport no one said a thing about my half full tube of toothpaste in my backpack. When I departed from the Tampa airport it was confiscated and I was told it was a security violation. That’s just how easy it is to evade TSA security procedures and just what a total waste of our tax money it is. So if three random people that I know of were not identified as being in breach of their security measures then can you imagine how many more there are every single day?

These sorts of agencies and illogical laws are pervasive throughout our society thanks to local, state and federal governments. They violate all our human rights and put us all at a lower standard of living, or utility, then we would otherwise be.

Remember a right is something that one gets to do without anyone else’s permission, as long as they don’t impose a cost on others in the process, so truthfully, there need be only one single law in our society: all humans have the right to live their lives as they see fit in pursuit of their own self-interests, or utility, as long as they don’t impose any sort of social, economic or physical cost on anyone else pursuing the same ends. And we need a moral court system to arbitrate those cases that violate that law. That’s it, that’s all we need. What difference does it make why you caused a car accident? You could have been tired, drinking, texting, distracted by any number of a hundred things. All that matters is that you imposed a cost on others; you’ve incurred a debt to society and now you have to pay it. You have to put the people you harmed back on the same level of social or economic or physical standing or utility that they were at before the accident.

What cost is imposed on society when someone speeds, or successfully drives after drinking, doesn’t come to a full stop at a stop sign or goes through a red light or any of the other thousands of victimless crimes that have no criminal intent associated with them? None, but the individual is forced to pay a debt to society that he has not incurred and that violates our human rights.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

There was another village though, village C, that didn’t live near a river so they got the government to reroute the river running between village A and village B to run through village C as well. Even though the project was drastically over budget and schedule it was eventually completed and the government was hailed as good and righteous. Unfortunately, the government didn’t know that village C sat right on top of a fault line. One day the fault moved and opened up a large hole in the earth right underneath the river cutting off the water supply to both village C and village B.

The government wasted no time addressing the crisis: they jumped into action to repair the hole under the river at village C but until they could finish they had to find a way to supply village B and village C with fresh water so they hired a crew from village A to carry water from a lake miles away that was supplying fresh water to village D. Even though the project was drastically over budget and schedule and some of the people contracted to carry the water were eventually convicted of fraud for charging the government for work they didn’t do and some government employees were found to be complicit in the fraudulent activities village B and village C did once again have fresh water and the government was hailed as good and righteous.

After a few weeks fresh water from village D’s lake was running low so the government commissioned a firm to dig a well to supply village D with water. Even though the project was drastically over budget and schedule and some of the people contracted to dig the well were eventually convicted of fraud for charging the government for work they didn’t do and some government employees were found to be complicit in the fraudulent activities and the head of the government was impeached but didn’t have to leave office the well was completed and village D once again had fresh water and the government was hailed as good and righteous.

Then one day the well dug to supply fresh water to village D went dry and the government leapt into action and commissioned an environmental group to find out why the well went dry. In the end the group published a 2000 page report stating the well went dry because the people in village D drank all the water in it and the government was hailed as good and righteous.

To address the problem of the people of village D drinking all the water in their well the leaders of village D were arrested and tried for misallocation of resources and sentenced to life in prison.

Meanwhile the people of villages B, C and D, being without water, all immigrated to village A since the hole in the earth beneath the river in village C had yet to be repaired and village A was the only village with fresh water.

After a while the influx of people into village A caused the water supply to run out so the government leapt into action: they began borrowing water from country u201CThem.u201D

After a while the demands for water in country u201CUSu201D could not be met by borrowing water only from country u201CThemu201D so country u201CUSu201D began borrowing water from other countries as well.

One day country u201CThemu201D demanded that all their water be paid back with interest. Country u201CUSu201D refused and invaded country u201CThemu201D in order to install a government that would be more agreeable to the country u201CUSu201D policy of taking and not giving.

Some of the people of country u201CThemu201D resented the fact that country u201CUSu201D had invaded their country and they fought back. Country u201CUSu201D didn’t like this so they sent more people to country u201CThemu201D to fight against the u201Cinsurgentsu201D leaving the repair project of the river in village C undermanned.

Meanwhile the fighting in country u201CThemu201D was disrupting the shipping of water to country u201CUSu201D so the u201CUSu201D government, seeing the crisis, decided to make its own water from hydrogen and oxygen.

The plan was to produce water and dig artificial rivers to carry the government produced water to villages, A, B, C and D.

Since new rivers were being dug, there was no reason to continue the repair project on the natural river going through village C so that project was abandoned. Even though the artificial river project was drastically over budget and schedule and some of the people contracted to build it were eventually convicted of fraud for charging the government for work they didn’t do and some government employees were found to be complicit in the fraudulent activities and the head of the government was impeached, again, but didn’t have to leave office, again, the government u201CUSu201D completed its new artificial river infrastructure which successfully supplied water to all four villages and the government was hailed as good and righteous

Unfortunately, all the people in country u201CUSu201D had already died of thirst.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

A healthy, sustainable economy is one in which producers invest in the necessary resources to produce the good or service that is being consumed. If business is good and the producers see that they can’t produce enough then they invest in expanding their productive capacity, adding jobs and financial and physical capital and the like. The decision to expand is based on the actions of the consumers. The information to the producer is so clear and accurate that the decision to incur additional debt in anticipation of future profits is made. Hence we then have and economy with a sound manufacturing infrastructure based on good information that is sustainable into the future.

A sick, unsustainable economy is one in which market information is not clear. It’s one in which the manufacturing infrastructure is volatile and weak due to this unclear information and the inability of producers and consumers to make good decisions: home loans being made to people who are unemployed, construction jobs building bridges to nowhere, people buying new cars when the one they have is paid for and runs just fine, people investing in funds that are Ponzi schemes just to name a few.

When the government intervenes and spends trillions of dollars, it does nothing to improve the manufacturing infrastructure. Their position is that they understand what consumers want better than the consumers themselves. Of course that sounds ridiculous just saying it, but that must be their position otherwise how could they justify being able to u201Cfixu201D the banking and automobile industries? Of course only if producers are producing what consumer truly want will the economy be sustainable and obviously they are not when the government intervenes.

Logically, how can the government claim to understand the financial markets and automobile markets well enough to u201Cfixu201D them when it would seem they didn’t understand them well enough to keep them from reaching the verge of bankruptcy in the first place? Furthermore, if the governments’ argument is that they understand these markets better than the market participants themselves and so well as to know how to go about u201Cfixingu201D them in order to improve the welfare of Americans then shouldn’t the government take over all the markets? What are they waiting for? Surely, their ability to understand markets isn’t limited to just finance and cars. Certainly with this great wealth of financial market information and knowledge and the power to predict financial markets the federal government could simply play the stock market and pay off our $14 trillion debt in a matter of years, but we don’t see them doing that do we?

Obviously the whole situation is a joke; trust me, there are thousands of economists in academia around the world who have made careers out of trying to develop models to predict markets, of all kinds, and no one has succeeded yet. I don’t think the likes of BO or Bernanke are up to the task.

What the government is doing is simply going on a shopping spree with credit cards. Like someone who lives beyond their means, it all looks really successful and opulent on the outside but eventually all the credit cards are going to be maxed out and no one will be willing to issue a new one. Then who will pay the debt off? Of course no one will; it will be defaulted, all or in part, and/or the fed will monetize it which is nothing more than another form of default.

Oh sure for the upcoming midterm election cycle it all looks good. One can hardly read a major news outlet story today without seeing something about how the economy is in recovery, the fed saved the world ( sound the cavalry charge ) but of course that’s just a temporary illusion until the government stops spending then we’ll really see just how bad the economic situation is.

The government with its irresponsible and economically dangerous programs is taking money and future profits from successful consumers and producers and giving it to unsuccessful ones. The immediate affect looks really nice: $1 million can put a lot of people to work very quickly but once the government stops spending the long term effects on the producers and consumers the money was taken from to pay for the spending will be catastrophic.

As many have pointed out: it’s not a matter of when the financiers of this fraudulent economy will stop loaning us more money but rather simply when. It may not be in our lifetime or our children’s lifetime but regardless, if we don’t do something to address the problem then it doesn’t matter when our country is ruined; we too are just as responsible.

Now so many will say: but if we leave the markets to themselves then greed will ruin us. Firms collude and monopolize and cause high prices and we’ll be in the same situation we’re in now. After all, it was the free market and lack of sufficient regulation that got us in this mess to begin with.

On the contrary, the fact that our economy isn’t already in ruin is a testimony to the power of the free markets. Our economy has persevered despite the government thanks to the remaining ability for people to come together and trade.

Economic barriers such as monopolies and government intervention are what motivate people the true market players with the best information to innovate and invent. To be creative and expand mans’ breadth of knowledge to new horizons and beyond. It’s true: necessity is the mother of invention and it is only because of this that our economy hasn’t completely collapsed already.

When gas hit over $5/gallon in the summer of ’08 you could read about ordinary people turning their cars into hybrids for petty cash. Regular Joe’s like you and me and now they are selling their newfound ideas and technologies to others for a profit! That my friends is the free market at work and with all its faults, it’s the best strategy around for the future of these United States.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

But until just recently I hadn’t experienced it myself firsthand. I was down in Chinatown in Washington DC for dinner and a movie. After leaving the movie theater I noticed cops parked on the side of the road in front of the movie theater. These cops had out their little pen lights and they were randomly pulling over passing drivers.

I crossed the street and saw a small gathering of other folks standing there watching what was going on. Each asking the other: u201Cdo you know what they are doing?u201D Nobody seemed to know for sure but we all know what it looked like. It looked like a scene out of Nazi Germany or Communist Russia: you papers please.

As we all stood there looking on a black teenager came whizzing by us on his skateboard. He skated across the street, past the cops and on down the road. As the cops saw him skate by they yelled something at him that was too intelligible for us to understand. I would imagine it was too intelligible for the skateboarder to understand as well because he turned and looked and kept on his way another 20 feet or so.

That’s when our heroic blue uniformed doughnut feeders leapt into action like Boy George at a Liberace concert. They took off running at full speed after this felonious social miscreant who so arrogantly and willfully didn’t kowtow to the fact that they said something.

Once the young man saw the cops running after him he voluntarily stopped his skateboard and stood there in the street waiting for the eggheads to catch up. Once they did they grabbed him as if they had cornered the devil himself and cattle rustled him up onto the sidewalk and up against the wall. They forcibly held one arm behind his back and the other against the wall up over his head, spread his legs and searched his person. I took a snapshot of this position with my cell phone:

As I stood there I could hear the police disciplining the young man on the error of his ways. How when they say to jump his only option is to ask: how high? Of course, being in possession of a functioning frontal lobe, the young man insisted that he had done nothing wrong but the tax feeders didn’t care. They simply kept repeating that he was told to do something and he didn’t and therefore evidently had forfeited his civil rights.

In the end the young man received a citation for J-walking, I kid you not, since he didn’t cross the street on the crosswalk. Unfortunately, it would seem that J-walking in China Town in DC is tantamount to suspected armed robbery so please use those crosswalks.

Unfortunately, this particular incident also gave me yet another opportunity to observe the sheep like hypnotic stupor that most Americans seem to exist in. While the young man was pinned up against the wall somebody walking by recognized him and asked him what was going on. The young man explained the civil injustice taking place and pleaded that the acquaintance remain as a witness to what was taking place to which she replied: u201Coh, you’ll be okay, I’m late for something, I’ll see you at church on Sundayu201D!

I could just feel the attitude in the air that night. Everyone witnessing this scene no doubt felt that this young man must have done something very bad, very wrong otherwise why would the police be chasing after him? No doubt they felt that if it had been them that they would have somehow deserved it because after all: the law is the law.

I remember growing up in the 70′s and 80′s, we were taught that everything to do with communism, especially Russia, was bad. That communist countries were evil governments and evil empires which abused citizen’s civil rights and might one day try to do the same to the U.S. They represented everything that was bad in the world and the U.S. represented everything that was good and we must fight the evil for the sake our humanity.

Is my picture above really so different than this one of Russian police arresting peaceful civil rights protesters?

Or this one from communist China:

Then why do people continue to see the U.S. through rose colored glasses? I just don’t get it. I guess that’s why I drink.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

Therefore, I’d like to propose a new government model, a model that gives the people the ability to have a clear and concise voice in the government’s activities. This model will not only ensure that the government cannot just do whatever it wants but also that the people are in fact in direct control of all government activities.

I’ll call it a "Pay to Play" model so the politicians will be able to relate to it. Instead of the government deciding what services they should provide Americans and forcing Americans to pay for those services whether they want to or not, the government would instead be more like a consultant.

Firstly, if our representatives in Washington have an idea for new legislation then they can propose it and vote on it but then they would have to float it to their respective constituencies for funding. The new government program cannot be funded forcibly but rather voluntarily by those Americans supporting it. If the government can’t raise enough money voluntarily then the program cannot be implemented. This is a simple vote of confidence by the American people in the new program. Those that support it can be identified and benefit from it and those that do not, will be excluded. Funding can be done online just like any of millions of existing private programs that are funded in a similar fashion.

Secondly, all legislators advocating and voting for a new government program must participate and donate to that program. They have no choice. This only makes common sense. How can one vote in favor of a program and yet not participate in it? Good leadership would mandate that our legislator lead by example.

Thirdly, legislators advocating preemptive war must be the first to go to the war zone after the attack. Additionally, the members of their family of fighting age must enlist for duty. Certainly our heroic legislators and other politicians like the Maverick, the Lion and the Rogue wouldn’t expect American citizens to do something they wouldn’t be willing to do themselves to ensure America’s national security.

Legislator’s salaries are to be determined by their constituency. Again, those supporting a representative or senator donate to his office. This is a direct and clear vote of confidence in their congressman. If they voted for him then they certainly won’t have a problem paying for him. If he or she decides that they no longer want the job because they don’t make enough money then they can quit and a new person is elected.

The president’s salary is to be determined by his constituency; that is to say the people that voted for him. This is a direct and clear vote of confidence in the president. If they voted for him then they certainly won’t have a problem paying for him. If the president decides he no longer wants the job because he doesn’t make enough money then he can quit and a new person is elected. Of course such a payment scheme for our president and legislators will weed out those who are in it for the money and those that are in it for the good of the American people.

Finally, all existing government Departments, Agencies, Bureaus, Offices, Commissions etc… are funded voluntarily by those that support them. For example: if I don’t want to help fund the Department of Education then I don’t, and therefore my children cannot attend any public school. But those that do support the DOE can donate as much as they want and their kids can attend.

It’s probably obvious by now that this model advocates a free market—type strategy to government: if one feels he’s better off by purchasing the government’s services then they are free to do so. Otherwise they don’t have to. This would make the government a true competitor in the economy. If they want their programs to be funded, then they would have to prove to their constituencies that they are worth it. Unfortunately, I think the federal government would go out of business, which it should.

Now those educated in public policy economics will immediately say that this sort of model would never work for a number of reasons. First of all there is the free rider problem: how do you exclude people from taking advantage of public programs which they didn’t pay for? To which I would counter: supporters and financial contributors to any government program would be aware that these programs will have free riders and therefore be more hesitant to donate. This would mean then that many more government programs would be underfunded and never be implemented, as it should be. Only if people felt that the benefits of the program outweighed the risks including free riders would they be willing to fund it. Of course the free rider problem exists in any public program and is a costly part of our existing government. This new model would mitigate, if not eliminate, this problem and save Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Then proponents of big government will argue that there are certain functions that the government must provide and for which they are in fact the only entity that can provide those services. Other than a national defense force, a court system for enforcing private property rights and a sound currency I would say they are wrong.

Governments start wars not people. With a much smaller government and the above military requirements of our heroic leaders, I think we would be at war much less and the military-industrial complex would come to a screeching halt.

I realize that, as much sense as some sort of competitive government makes, it will never happen. It proposes complete government transparency (seems like I’ve heard that promise somewhere before), improved efficiency, improved welfare and possible unprecedented economic growth. Now we can’t have that can we?

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

After graduation I did manage to earn an athletic scholarship to play baseball at a small Florida college but after two years of playing ball, and earning less than one year’s worth of college credit, I realized I was wasting my time as well as the college’s resources and decided I needed to do something else until I figured out what I wanted to do.

So, being the son of a 20-year retired Air Force Tech Sergeant, I joined the military. I spoke to all the branches and in the end it was the Navy that won me over for a six-year enlistment. They enticed me with visions of advanced electronics training, fantastic marketability in the civilian world and a chance to see the world. Remember the old Navy slogan: u201CIt’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.u201D Oh boy!

From the moment I arrived in Orlando, Florida for my basic training I realized what a joke it was. If you want to know what military basic training is like just watch any episode of Gomer Pyle, it’s exactly like that. Just as ridiculous.

The military always advertises that it wants the best and the brightest, but the first thing they do is try to break you down and then reprogram you. They want to reprogram you into a person that will follow orders without question; something tantamount to a frontal lobotomy that leaves subjects unable to think for themselves. Well then why do they need the best and the brightest if they are not meant to think for themselves? Given the chaos of battle, to strive to have a force that is not expected to think for themselves is not only ridiculous but dangerous as well yet the military, under the guise of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), regularly prosecutes soldiers who had the courage, intellect and wisdom to do what needed to be done in the field to preserve lives even though they weren’t told to do it. That’s called u201Cdisobeying a direct orderu201D from some arrogant, bonehead hundreds or thousands of miles away.

One is taught that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things and the military will teach you the right way. Anyone not doing things the right way then is to be looked upon with contempt and suspicion. The military teaches you how to micromanage life, as if they know how to do this, to the point that you find yourself counting brush strokes when you brush your teeth. Every move is to have purpose and be approved or else you will be prosecuted by the UCMJ.

The military, see, is a complete subculture within America. All soldiers are considered to be government property, no kidding, and there exist regulations in the UCMJ that can mean loss of pay, confinement, and even jail time if that government property is damaged somehow or if it doesn’t do what it is told to do. Again, even though the government says it wants the best and the brightest, if the sidewalks outside are icy during the winter soldiers are not allowed out for fear of them falling and injuring themselves. As ridiculous and asinine as that sounds it is fact; I lived it. So the broken logic is that we want the best to go fight in foreign lands and kill people and operate multi-million dollar equipment but we don’t trust them to walk down an icy sidewalk without hurting themselves like thousands of civilians do daily in the wintertime.

It’s an abusive subculture that demands abject subjectivity and a complete lack of reason, logic and intellect. The military trains people to be killers; puts those people in a war zone where at any moment, at any second their lives could be over and then prosecutes them if they don’t kill someone in accordance with the u201Crules of engagement.u201D That is to say: even though you are in a war zone there are rules to killing people and it doesn’t matter that a month earlier you were teaching 8th-grade history and your national guard unit got called to battle in Iraq. You need to pull that trigger and end another human life but only after that person clearly tries to kill you or else you can be prosecuted under the UCMJ for murder. I’ll let you marinate on that thought for a second.

I’ve never killed anyone but I don’t think you have to in order to imagine what that could do to a rational person’s psyche. I would imagine you would have to put yourself into a mental state that disassociates what you’ve always known to be reality and convince yourself that somehow what you are doing is right; that if you don’t kill that other guy, he will kill you, so you pull the trigger.

Then these poor souls come home and are expected to re-associate their minds with the reality of a civilized society because if they don’t then they will be prosecuted under the UCMJ for insubordination or worse: they might kill someone. The whole thing is a study in mind control conducted by the least-educated people in our society.

It still amazes me how parents brag about their children serving in the military in Afghanistan or Iraq. They talk about how some Arabs dropped planes on their heads on 9/11/01 so they are all for going over there and killing as many of those sons-a-bitches as possible and damn proud that their children are helping make the world a safer place. Who’s going to help the make the world a safer place from America?

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all. Go ask Alice, when she’s 10 feet tall…

As Morpheus said to Neo: u201Cwe live in an imaginary state.u201D A state in which people have been indoctrinated to such a degree that they are no longer able to discern reality from make believe. A culture that is so socially numb and easily pliable that words like u201Cmisspokeu201D and u201Cmisstatedu201D have replaced the word u201Cliedu201D; a culture where a person can be asked a yes or no question and speak for 5 minutes and never answer the question and yet everyone believes that somehow he did; a culture where a black person can’t be referred to as black; a 5’0" 100-lb woman can’t be referred to as smaller and weaker than a 6’6" 250-lb man; a culture where the wife of a president is considered able to lead a nation for no reason other than she was the wife of a president and ignoring that her version of a story is given more credence than actual video footage; a culture where one can be sued if they don’t hire someone even if they are unqualified for the job; a culture where people can be arrested, booked and thrown in jail for driving a car and feel as though somehow they deserve it.

There is an entire generation or two of people that are so anesthetized that they condone the invasion and destruction of sovereign third-world countries that couldn’t possibly pose a threat to our national security whatsoever and the killing of innocent men, women, children in the process: Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and yet practically bring the country to a standstill for the death of 13 U.S. soldiers in Texas. When did we go to war with Pakistan?

We are a society of people who have gone down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter and March Hare and believe that somehow contrary to basic mathematical laws like one plus one equals two the economy can be improved by taking money from one person and giving it to another or by dropping it from a helicopter. Given their drunken social state, it makes perfect sense to them.

We live in a society where one’s celebrity equates to ability; where a pretty face, gender or ethnic background means more than character, integrity, ability and courage; where a political man, morally, professionally and personally disgraced, can lecture at Harvard’s school of ethics and a political woman known for lying during campaign trips and elsewhere can be appointed to one of our countries highest posts: secretary of state.

A society in which a man wins an international peace award, not for his peace efforts, but rather for a PowerPoint presentation about a theoretical and controversial environmental condition or by a man who, not only didn’t exhibit any of the required characteristics of the award, but in fact exhibited exactly the opposite by sending American men and women into war zones to do his dirty work. It will be a glorious day when u201Cleadersu201D have to fight their own battles. I wonder how quick they would be to go to war then.

We live in a society of political figures who are so insecure with who they are that they use fake Las Vegas—type names in an attempt to seem more potent than they really are. Names like: John McCain the maverick, Ted Kennedy the Lion, Sarah Palin the rogue. The rogue? Can anyone think of a word that describes Palin any less? Well considering the u201Crogueu201D quit her elected position in order to promote her own celebrity I’d like to describe her with the word quitter. Now that’s a woman we want leading a nation; a woman who exhibits such loyalty and perseverance. What’s going to happen if she breaks a nail as president? Will she invade Thailand? Of course like everyone who is stoned, some might get emotional about my description of the Alaskan mutant, but that’s to be expected from those whose mental state is altered.

We have people around the world including our biggest financier, China laughing at our government’s highest officials when they try to sell them the same bullshit the inebriated Americans buy and yet the drugged continue to believe.

Our leadership doesn’t even try to hide their contempt for the rule of law anymore because they know that a mentally impaired electorate won’t complain just as long as they keep bringing the high.

Every election cycle it’s the same people on the dance card and nobody says anything. They admittedly vote for the u201Clesser of two evilsu201D every four years and yet they continue to vote for the u201Clesser of two evilsu201D without it ever hitting them upside the head that the lesser of two evils is still an evil. Being in their euphoric state of social silliness, how could they ever notice?

So this is the society in which we sober folks live and we must continually keep an eye on the addicts, who are in fact the majority, in order to make sure they don’t affect us to the detriment of our lives. We must constantly try to convince them to seek help; to enroll in rehab because the problem starts with them. Delusion is real and the truth will set them free. It’s scary to know the truth because one can never go back to the ignorant bliss from which one came. Let’s hope the truth does it before depression, hyperinflation and bread lines or worse do it.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

After recently reading the article on the MIT students that sent a camera into space for $150, I had to comment on NASA.

I’ve recently taken a new job with an engineering firm. This small but growing firm has contracts with many organizations both public and private. The particular project I’ve been farmed out to is in fact located at NASA.

Having worked at NASA now for only 2 days, I’ve gotten a first hand look at the wonders of government inefficiency, irresponsibility, waste and unprofessionalism.

My first impression of NASA was when I entered the campus and saw communist-era looking cinder-block buildings, overgrown shrubs and unsightly, unfinished construction.

That turned out to be nothing though compared to when I finally actually entered one of these buildings: barren, sterile old hallways — some even with an odor of urine like one might expect in a county jail. Paper designs scathe taped to the hallway walls. Erratic air-conditioning working in some offices but not in most. The carpeting, in the offices that even had any, was badly stained and filthy. The office spaces were cramped and unorganized.

In any case I sat down at my new desk with no computer, no network credentials, no email account not even a permanent security badge. Every morning I have to call a colleague to come meet me at the gate and escort me around all day. When working for private engineering firms the past 3 years, I had all these things by the end of the first day of business.

So throughout the course of the day, I go about doing a whole lot of nothing because no one has any sort of orientation planned for new employees and I have no computer. Oh I heard and saw a lot of gossiping, sitting around talking about who didn’t do what and what others were going to do about it etc… Typical government tax feeder-type conversations, but I didn’t see a whole lot of work being done. Unfortunately, I did make the mistake of drinking a lot of water since my office was one of the ones with no air conditioning in August.

After my first day then at the venerable space agency I went home, ate dinner, and spent most of the rest of the evening on the john. I had no idea why, but I had a very bad case of diarrhea.

I started thinking through my day and what I ate: cereal for breakfast, pizza for lunch and a frozen dinner. That was it. Again, in the middle of the night, my stomach woke me twice to go pray to the porcelain god.

My second day at NASA found me still in squalor in the same office, still with no air, no computer, no nothing.

In passing I mentioned to my office mates that I had bad diarrhea, to which they immediately responded: did you drink the water? Of course, I responded: yes. I was then informed that the water coming out of the water fountains was not filtered and could make you sick.

In fact, my colleagues were part of a self-organized water consortium that provided either bottled or filtered water to its members on a daily basis. What a wonderful example of how people with similar wants can so easily organize themselves and solve a problem at a local level when the government doesn’t intervene. In fact it’s an example of how markets can organize to solve social problems that the government creates.

It’s also clear that as interesting as space exploration is, it too should be left to the private sector. Don’t get me wrong, I think, given their incredible goals, that NASA has done a great job. But it has cost trillions of dollars simply because they have no deadlines and an almost endless supply of money to fund their activities. They don’t behave the same as a private firm would, which was competing with others for market share. If they are over budget, so be it. They get more budget from you and me. If they are over their time deadlines, they just take longer.

Burt Rutan and his group proved how quickly and efficiently private sector space exploration can be by buildng a space vehicle that was able to go into space and return twice within a five-day period.

Something that to this day, NASA still can’t do.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran, economist, and editor of the daily non-partisan column Qaoss.com.

Don Cooper Archives

Not being a senior citizen, I haven’t had much exposure to AARP, but when I saw and read the ad, I couldn’t help but think how irresponsible for them to use their influence over seniors to try and push something on them like this with big, bright, colorful, intelligent-sounding but misleading advertising.

Their ad consisted of 5 what they call "myths" about Obamacare that they want to clear up for their members and explain why they are false:

Health care reform will be a government takeover

The details of any healthcare bill are irrelevant. What needs to be considered is only the fact that the government is planning on regulating and hence distorting production and prices, in yet another industry and the historical precedents set by the federal government that never sees a government program die, but rather grow with time. If it won’t be a takeover at first, it will be eventually. Don’t call it a takeover then. Call it taking control, call it regulating, call it whatever you want, it’s government legislation that will force doctors and patients to make decisions about their healthcare that they normally would not make. It introduces the same moral hazard as any and all government regulation.

We can’t afford to fix healthcare in this economic crisis

I agree with AARP on this one. We can do something to address the high costs of healthcare even in hard economic times: get the government out of the healthcare business and address tort reform to prevent frivolous malpractice suites. Both of which would save the government and Americans money.

Healthcare reform will be the end of Medicare

Don’t know much about Medicare except that the U.S. government sold the program in the 1960′s with the lie that by 1990 Medicare would only cost the taxpayers $6 billion. By 1990 it had cost $67 billion in real dollars. If nothing else we can use this as factual historical evidence of government-run healthcare. What more does one need? The government is always wrong with their predictions about anything. Whether it be on purpose, otherwise known as lying, or ignorance. Either way, they need to stop making predictions.

Healthcare reform will lead to rationed health care

All economic goods, which is everything except for air and sunshine, are scarce and need to be rationed somehow. In a market economy that rationing mechanism is price. As an economist who has lived many years in European countries where healthcare is regulated, controlled, provided by the federal government, I can tell you unequivocally that YES, healthcare will end up being rationed not by price but rather by some commission of bureaucrats who will set "guidelines" for who can receive what care. That is in fact the whole purpose of this healthcare reform: to reduce costs, to make costs equitable across social lines. Those artificial costs imposed by government intervention of any kind, will be lower than the true market value and hence we’ll end up with a shortage and of course an excess demand for healthcare. Then healthcare will have to be rationed by other means than price. As with any economic good, as price goes down more of the good is demanded. Of course the cost to people won’t actually go down due to increased taxes, interest on the debt and inflation that will occur so the government can pay for it, but in people’s minds it will be cheaper. So people will go to the doctor for any and all ailments. Dr. offices will become overcrowded so they’ll start going to the ER which will become overcrowded. So the bureaucrats will ration it.

I’ve seen it firsthand. Not a single author of these bills, as far as I know, has ever lived in such a country. They don’t know what they are talking about, pure and simple.

Healthcare reform means the government will make life and death decisions for you

Absolutely, they will. They won’t look at it as such, but that’s what it will be. If someone needs medical care of any kind and they are not free to find a doctor of their choosing from the entire doctor pool but rather are given a list to choose from, and the doctor is forced to only provide a government-influenced schedule of services at set prices then again, the moral hazard issue dominates here. Doctors and patients will make decisions that they otherwise would not make without government intervention. And who’s to say whether they are life or death decisions? Maybe some decisions aren’t, maybe some are. Maybe a doctor would have treated a patient differently which could have prevented or detected early some life-threatening condition, but didn’t due to government regulations. Maybe the patient would have died anyway. Who can say? But one thing for sure, we’ll know that those decisions were not made by the free will of the doctor—patient relationship and so we cannot say that "everything was done to prevent it."

As with all government intervention, the government assumes the role of being our moral compass. They are in a position to dictate to an entire nation of 300 million plus, what is the "right thing to do." Of course they’re true objective is to get votes from people at election time while at the same time, getting as much money and power as possible from special interests, campaign donors and political parties.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

My entire adult life the U.S. government has been, according to their own definition, involved in terrorist activities: 1953 installation of the Shah of Iran which was the use of force to influence and affect a government; the invasion of Afghanistan followed by the invasion of Iraq. Both of which, again, were the use of violent means and life-threatening acts meant to influence governments.

The arrogance of the U.S. government knows no bounds. They throw the word "terrorism" around with such abandon and frequency that it has almost become a cliché. Because of this, the de-facto definition of terrorism, as propagated by the U.S. government, has become: anything somebody else does that the U.S. government doesn’t like. And since the U.S. government has redefined the term then they couldn’t possibly ever be guilty of it themselves.

Maybe this is why it struck me so poignantly the other day when I arrived at Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport and ran into one of our government’s most effective terrorist propaganda machines: the United Services Organization or USO.

As I came up from the terminal train, at the head of the escalator were, as usual, USO members wearing their little red smocks, and buttons and carrying signs extolling the greatness of our troops and what they are doing around the world: using violent and life-threatening acts to influence governments.

What affected me the most though was their attempts to influence others at the airport. The USO you see seems to know when servicemen and women will be arriving at Atlanta Hartsfield and they are there waiting for them. As each and everyone comes up the escalator they begin with their show: clapping and cheering these young people as if they had just won the World Series. The USO workers turn to the waiting crowd and encourage them to clap as well, which they do in an attempt not to seem "un-American." They shake each one’s hand and give them a small token of their appreciation.

Just one more way to say to these young people: don’t listen to your conscience; what you are doing is noble, valued and appreciated by your country. In other words: stay in the border-land that is the fantasy in which the government wants you to remain so we can get you and others like you to do our dirty work.

Certainly, few of these returning service men and women ever joined the U.S. military so they could go to the Middle East and fight a constitutionally illegal war and kill innocent women and children. See the U.S. military offers incentives to get people to sign up. Educational benefits, for example, that will pay for an undergraduate degree, pilot training, law school and even medical school. In return the student is required to serve a certain number of years on active duty and then the active reserves.

So it would seem that the purpose of the USO is to keep our troops convinced that they are doing the "right thing." That they are "serving their country." That they are "defending their country" even though they are serving half way around the world in third-world countries that, even if they had the weaponry, couldn’t possibly deliver it on U.S. soil unless they planned on doing it on camel back. Most importantly, they want our troops to feel that we support what they are doing. Which of course millions of Americans do not. This writer included. Hell, the government has most people feeling guilty if they see an American serviceman or woman and they don’t personally go over and thank them. People do this automatically these days certainly without ever even asking themselves: what is it I’m actually thanking them for?

The American populous is conditioned, and well-adjusted. When I see these USO folks at the airport, and they begin with their cheerleading act and their gratuitous actions, I just simply feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that my government is so irresponsible and so arrogant with American lives. I feel ashamed that my fellow Americans are so socially uneducated; so sensory dull; so weak minded.

And having lived almost half my adult life overseas I can unequivocally say: the rest of world gets it and they are ashamed of us too.

As a parent I also have to ask myself: who are these parents that let their children join the U.S. military? When I see these young folks I want to go up to them and encourage them to get out as soon as possible. To do whatever it takes to get their lives back and not chance having to live it seriously injured or worse yet: being killed and not being able to live it at all.

An "other-than-honorable" discharge from the U.S. military is a small price to pay for one’s life, wouldn’t you say? Take it from someone who did just that and it hasn’t affected my life one iota. Just more lies the U.S. government propagates. No private sector employer has ever, ever cared one bit about my military service. All they care about is whether I have the necessary education and skills to help them make a profit; which I do!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

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The recent passing of Ted Kennedy is no different I’m sure. Except for the way the man is being remembered: an American hero of sorts. As one woman put it: "a senator we couldn’t afford to lose." As another put it: "part of an American political dynasty." And as one news anchor put it this morning: "he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his transgressions by serving the public." Others are referring to his nickname as the "liberal lion." Roar!

These comments show so clearly the fantasy world that is our federal government and the complete lack of moral character and respect for our country and her constitution by those who have been in it so long that they not only define it; they own it; they run it.

They are treated as if they are not held to the same social standards as the rest of us when in fact they most certainly are.

Ted Kennedy is a man whose life was marked with immorality and scandal from an early age.

A man who was expelled from Harvard for cheating and a man who should have been tried on at least vehicular homicide in the killing of Mary Jo Kopechne but rather was given the opportunity to plead to a lesser charge of "leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury" and receive a suspended sentence. And that was considered okay since he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for it. From Wikipedia:

"On July 25, seven days after the incident, Kennedy entered a plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. Kennedy’s attorneys suggested that any jail sentence should be suspended, and the prosecutors agreed to this, citing Kennedy’s age, character and prior reputation. Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months’ incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended. In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy’s “unblemished record” and said that he “has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose”

I wonder how Miss Kopechne’s parents liked the wording of that one? "…causing injury." I guess that’s a euphemism used for the Kennedy family meaning death.

I’m sure there are a lot of irresponsible people in jail right now for vehicular homicide of one sort or another who would prefer to spend their lives as free men being paid by the American people while atoning for their transgressions as Kennedy was allowed to do rather than paying their debt to society behind bars. Not only was Kennedy allowed to remain free, he was elected to public office over the course of 50+ years in a legislative capacity — you know, the guys that write laws like the ones he broke — and rewarded with an annual salary by the American people.

Even worse, he presided over the highly influential Senate Judiciary Committee having a tremendous influence on courts around the country and prospective Supreme Court nominees. You know, like the kind of court and federal judge that ensured he didn’t get sent to jail for murder like he might have if tried by a jury of his peers if his name wasn’t Kennedy.

That alone is enough to show that the man lacked any semblance of the necessary character or integrity to represent anyone let alone be paid by me and you.

I would have had more respect for the man if he had answered for being directly responsible for the death of another human being rather than the cowardice he showed by using his political influence to dodge it.

Then of course there were the ongoing scandals. Again from Wikipedia;

On Easter weekend 1991, Kennedy was at a get-together at the family’s Palm Beach, Florida estate when, restless and maudlin after reminiscing about his brother-in-law, he left for a late-night visit to a local bar, getting his son Patrick and nephew William Kennedy Smith to accompany him. Patrick Kennedy and Smith returned with women they met there, Michelle Cassone and Patricia Bowman. Cassone said that Ted Kennedy subsequently walked in on her and Patrick, dressed only in a nightshirt and with a weird look on his face. Smith and Bowman went out on the beach, where they had sex that he said was consensual and she said was rape. The local police made a delayed investigation; soon Kennedy sources were feeding the press with negative information about Bowman’s background and several mainstream newspapers broke a taboo by publishing her name. The case quickly became a media frenzy.

Some will say he was the victim of the "Kennedy curse." That it was because of the "curse" that he had another student take his freshman Spanish test for him at Harvard and subsequently get caught. It was the "curse" that caused him to drive off the bridge at Chappaquiddick and not his libido and the all the booze he’d drank all evening. It was the "curse" that caused him to take his son and nephew out clubbing and hook-up with those girls.

As for the American political dynasty: that’s exactly what our government is NOT supposed to be: a dynasty ruled by one ruling class of people whether it be a family or collection of families like Kennedy, Bush, Clinton or whoever. It’s supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people.

And what is with all these crotchety old men trying to identify themselves with virile animals? How pathetic. I guess these political titles and a bottle of Viagra is the recipe for political potency in Washington. McCain is a maverick; Kennedy is a lion. How about just trying to be a moral man and live up to your oath to defend, protect and preserve the constitution of the United States like you swore you would do? That would really be enough.

Ted Kennedy was nobody special. He was a civil servant at best, a cheating, philandering, murderer at worst. He was a man who never held a real job in his life. He went right from school into politics. His entire life was financed by you and me. He engaged in what some would want us to believe was "ground breaking" legislation but was of course all constitutionally illegal, created moral hazard and cost us more than it could have ever possibly provided. Legislation like support of our billion dollar plus annual payments to Israel at the expense of the American people. He’s been described as a warrior for the less fortunate (you know, people who didn’t win life’s lottery like you and me) and a fierce advocate for health-care reform. Once again proving that politicians understand less about the economy they think they are charged with controlling then the people they represent.

Ted Kennedy, like most representatives in Washington, was under the impression that he was supposed to make decisions for his constituency rather than listen to them and represent their wants in Washington and this made him a dangerous man for this country. He spent more than five decades as part of the political machine that has been slowly and systematically driving this country into the ground. I’m not glad the man’s dead. He was a husband, a father, a grandfather I would imagine, a human being. But I am glad he’s out of the government.

Funny, there are many men in public life who go through their entire lives and are never caught in such scandalous situations as the ones Ted Kennedy was. I guess he was just "unfortunate."

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

Some of the latest town hall meetings show that our representatives have absolutely no fear of their constituency. In the irresponsible and unprofessional case of the old and crotchety Arlen Specter, he makes it clear that he has no patience for any of his constituents that disagree with him, ask a question that he doesn’t feel is appropriate or can’t bullshit his way through. He makes comments to the affect that a question is "too vague" to have his support and moves on to the next question. In one video he is seen and heard shouting at one man to leave for passionately expressing his disgust with business as usual on Capitol Hill. A comment in which the man received resounding applause from Specter’s other constituents. But that’s how our government deals with dissent: you simply have it forcibly removed.

Barney Frank is another example of a congressman who doesn’t hesitate to label, criticize and insult his constituency, among many, many others.

I wonder just how long you or I would last at our current jobs if we spoke to our employers in such a manner.

Truth is we could fire them all today and it would have absolutely no long-term ill effects on the country or the economy. Except for probably national defense and a body to coin and regulate a sound currency — this would be only to decrease the transaction costs of doing business amongst the states and with foreign countries — I believe that we really have no need for a federal government at all. The framers of the constitution had a similar point of view and hence wrote that document in such a way as to purposefully limit the government’s power to a small subset of economic responsibilities. Even they were too optimistic though as the federal government has proven that it can’t even provide simple postal services without fraud, waste and abuse.

An idea like this always sounds odd and radical to people since our entire lives all we’ve ever known is a behemoth bureaucracy that invades our personal and professional lives at all levels. We’ve just come to expect it and tend not to think what life would be like without it, or even if life would be possible without it.

My wife grew up in communist Romania. She was 14 in 1989 when Nicolaie and Elena Ceausescu were taken out back of the federal building in Bucharest, Romania and summarily executed by a firing squad for decades of abuse of Romania’s people and resources.

My wife and others have told me on many occasions of how the Romanian government literally disappeared overnight. How the day after the communist party was driven out that everyone looked at each other as if to say: what do we do now?

It was a surreal time since all most of the people had ever known was the government’s control of them and the factors of production.

It turned out that the Romanians didn’t need the central government at all. They actually knew how to make it through their daily lives all by themselves. They knew how to get up and get dressed and cook breakfast and drive to work without imposing any costs on anyone else in the process. They knew how to be productive at work and get along with their boss and colleagues. They knew how to go grocery shopping and pay for their goods all by themselves. They knew how to communicate with one another and trade with one another. And oh how they traded.

Literally overnight, as quickly as communism disappeared, new markets appeared. Once the government constraints on trade no longer existed people were free to trade as they wished and there was an unprecedented economic boom in the 90′s. The only ill effect of this boom was the fact that the government had controlled prices for so long and kept them artificially low for so long — as the current administration is now proposing doing with healthcare prices — and had printed so much worthless currency that when those price controls were lifted and the markets cleared it became evident just how artificially low the prices had been held and hyperinflation ensued.

But other things appeared that hadn’t previously existed: innovations in technology and science, inventions in businesses and commerce, newfound creativity in the arts and social sciences. It was remarkable. And all of it because of the lack of government intervention.

It would seem though that the only way to ensure lack of government intervention is to limit government. Since even such a clearly written document as our constitution isn’t able to invoke the necessary integrity and morality in our federal civil servants, it’s clear that the only solution is to limit the federal government to nothing and allow the states to govern and trade amongst themselves and with other economic agents.

I don’t think it’s difficult for a man to imagine a country in which he actually gets to keep 95% or more of the money he earns. A country in which he doesn’t have to pay rent on his own land in the form of property taxes. A land of opportunity where hard work and ingenuity is rewarded and laziness and political posturing is punished. A land where men like Arlen Specter, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and so many others can’t make a living off of the fruits of hard-working people but rather are forced to compete with everyone else for their share of the economic pie. A country where our president is treated as the civil servant that he is and not as royalty at the expense of the commoners.

I think I’d call this land: America.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

This is a perfect example of the federal government’s attitude towards its citizenship: how dare you question the all-powerful Oz? They act as if somehow they’re not our representatives but rather our lords. That somehow by being in Washington they’ve been blessed with some sort of insight that the rest of us don’t posses. That they have been empowered with the ability to understand these complex issues when we can not and so therefore they will deal with them for us and we are to be thankful for it.

Although I and many, many others have written and continue to write about the economic effects of socialized healthcare — and any government intervention really — I think they deserve repeating.

The necessary economic education to be able to understand this issue can be learned in a first-year business class at any university. Or even in a high school civics class for that matter. The details of any healthcare bill are irrelevant because the economics of its implementation are the same regardless. President Obama’s lack of this knowledge, or worse, his conscience decision to ignore it, is irresponsible on his and his administration’s part.

Mr. Rothbard’s point is so correct: "it’s not a crime to be ignorant of economics…but it is irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic issues while remaining in that state of ignorance."

The main points are:

• The 47 million number of supposed uninsured Americans come from a census and is grossly overstated.
• There is no constitutional nor moral authority for the government to tax Peter to pay for healthcare for Paul. If it does then Paul may be better off but Peter is worse off and social welfare declines.
• The government does not have the incentive to work efficiently since it does not compete with anyone. Therefore the quality of any good or service that that government provides will be far less than its complement in the private sector.
• The government is a bureaucratic behemoth. Everybody along the bureaucrat trail has to be fed. Therefore, any good or service that the government provides will cost significantly more than if provided in the private sector.
• The government will try and control healthcare costs causing a severe excess of demand and consequently a shortage of healthcare services. Healthcare will then be rationed.

President Obama and his lackeys continue to irresponsibly throw around the information that there are 47 million Americans who can’t afford healthcare. That’s simply not true. That number comes from census data. On the census they didn’t ask if people couldn’t afford healthcare but rather if they had healthcare. And if not then for what period of time haven’t they had healthcare etc… For purposes of trying to convince people that a grave situation exists in our country that simply doesn’t, the president is omitting information from those numbers (also known as lying to us dumb country folk).

Many of those people have incomes that are more than sufficient to afford healthcare but simply choose not to buy it. Many of those are young people who feel that their need for catastrophic healthcare coverage doesn’t warrant the cost. It includes illegal aliens as well as many who are in job transition and will have healthcare again within a few months. Many are people who are already covered by existing private and government indigent healthcare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and others.

The actual numbers might be closer to half of Obama’s 47 million or even less.

Secondly, I challenge anyone to find the clause in the constitution that even comes close to giving the president or our legislature the legal authority to tax us and pay for healthcare. For those irresponsible enough to try and abusively interpret Article I, Section 8, clause 1 to mean that the legislation has the authority to tax us and spend it on ANYTHING it wants to "provide for the common welfare" I offer the following simple economic analysis:

One dollar taken from Peter and passed through the government machine comes out much less than a dollar for Paul. Therefore, in order to pay for one dollar’s worth of healthcare for Paul the government machine must also tax Mary and David and many others. So Paul is better off because he now receives one dollar’s worth of healthcare but Peter and Mary and David and the others are worse off because they are now poorer than they were before and must go without something that they were planning on spending that dollar on. Therefore the net change in social welfare is always negative and in direct violation in fact of the "Tax and Spend clause." The only way for the government to provide for the general welfare is to get out of the way, enforce contracts and let people do what they want with their money.

Anyone who as ever worked for the state or federal government knows first-hand the inefficiencies and higher costs associated with government work. Since the government does not have to worry about being solvent, if they need more money they simply tax us more, borrow more and have the fed print more of it, they don’t operate under the same economic incentives as a private firm.

Government salaries are not determined by the supply and demand of labor but rather they are legislated. There are folks with high school educations making $80,000?—$100,000/yr simply because they’ve been working there for 30 years and a salary increase has always been included in their agency’s annual budget request bill. These people’s true market value would most likely be minimum wage or slightly better if they had to work for a living.

Finally, since the true market value of the healthcare services that the government will try to provide will be much higher than the artificially low levels that the government will mandate and since people will perceive their healthcare as being "free" and will therefore go to the doctor now for every little insignificant thing, there will be a huge shortage of healthcare services available. Doctor’s offices and hospital waiting rooms will be overcrowded.

This is where Obama’s true ignorance and inexperience shines. Having lived and worked for years in no less than three other countries which have socialized healthcare: (UK, Germany, and Romania) I can verify without a doubt that socialized healthcare is rationed. If you need a prescription for an antibiotic or shots for your kids then you will probably be okay. But that’s not why we have healthcare insurance. We have it to cover the catastrophic healthcare issues such as broken bones, acute and chronic health conditions and for these things you will wait in line.

While living in Germany I needed an operation on my left hand. The condition was such that I had to quit any and all activities that put excessive strain on my left hand. I had to wait from August until December for the operation. During that time the condition worsened and to this day I still have numbness in it.

In Romania, a member of the EU, all one needs to know is that when it comes to socialized healthcare, you get what you pay for. So one can imagine what kind of healthcare you get when it’s "free." True story: my brother-in-law almost died of appendicitis due to a mis-diagnosis. When people work for the government and their wages are controlled they simply have no more incentive to take pride in their work. They no longer innovate nor invent. The industry will stagnate.

While the politicians will squabble about the details of their plans, they are irrelevant. The above economic effects are immutable. They are not theory but rather fact. There exists a vast body of economic history to bear them out. They are in practice today all around us in the form of current federal economic programs. To ignore them is irresponsible and culpable. To be ignorant of them and remain decidedly in that ignorance is impeachable.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It’s this clause that our government most commonly abuses in defense of their special interest legislation and subsequent taxing and spending.

Supreme court associate justice Joseph Story (1812—1845) argued that the "Welfare Clause" gave congress the power to tax and spend as an independent power of the legislature; that is, the General Welfare Clause gives Congress power it might not derive anywhere else.

[T]he [General Welfare] clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution. … But the adoption of the broader construction leaves the power to spend subject to limitations. … [T]he powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare."

Interpreting the constitution in this fashion makes no common sense. If this one clause in the constitution gives the legislature discretionary power to tax the people and spend it on whatever programs they deem to provide for the general welfare then the constitution serves no purpose since any administration can and will define anything they want — most likely special interest legislation — to be providing for the welfare of the people and who is going to stop them and that is precisely the purpose of the constitution: to keep the government in check. In other words, in a document meant to constrain the power of the federal government our founding fathers gave them unbridled power?

Given the nature of men, the long dubious history of government corruption, fraud and waste, I find it difficult to believe that anyone thinks our legislature should be or posses the faculties to be our moral compass. Or that they truly act in the interest of the general welfare of the people rather than themselves.

Furthermore, any taxing of the people and spending by the government — even defense spending — by nature necessarily decreases the welfare of those taxed.

Consider the congress decides that providing healthcare for Americans is providing for their general welfare.

But the government has to pay for this healthcare somehow so they either raise our taxes, borrow money from foreign countries or have the Federal Reserve print more money to pay for it. All equally effective forms of taxation.

Let’s assume the government taxes Peter an extra $500/year in order to pay for healthcare for Paul. But of course that $500 won’t be $500 by the time it goes through the government’s inefficient beauracy so they also have to tax Robert, David, Jim and many others just to provide healthcare for Paul. Now Paul is better off because he now has healthcare. But all the people that were taxed to pay for it are worse off. They didn’t want to give that $500 to the government. They wanted to use it for clothes or food or investment or any number of other things.

Even if they receive the national healthcare as well they are still worse off since they had no choice in the matter. What if they don’t want government healthcare? They still have to pay the taxes. What if they don’t get hurt or sick to the point that they need to use the national healthcare? They still have to pay for it. And since $1 always comes out in any government program less than $1 there are many more people who are worse off resulting in a net negative change to social welfare.

Governments are always wrong in their estimations of the cost of their programs. In the 60′s Medicaid part A was estimated to cost $9 billion by 1990. As of 1990 Medicaid Part A had cost $67 billion in real dollars. Social welfare was certainly decreased.

Every dollar the government takes out of someone’s pocket is a dollar that person no longer has to spend for himself. Even if he is a recipient of the program his welfare is still less since he was forced to participate in a program he had no say in and had to give up other things he wanted to do.

Even if someone wants the government healthcare their welfare will decrease due to the quality of the care. The governments’ inherent inefficiencies, corruption and waste will provide subpar healthcare. Everybody remembers the scandal at Walter Reid Army Hospital. That is government run healthcare. Just visit your local VA or Army hospital. Talk to people about Medicare and Medicaid and other social healthcare programs that already exist and see what they say. The quality will also continue to go down as the costs go up since there are no market signals to correct the inefficiencies. The inefficiencies will be dealt with by spending more money to correct the problem decreasing social welfare even further.

Economically, financially, logistically and socially it is impossible for the federal government to provide for the general welfare regardless of what they do. That’s why if a clause in the constitution is not clear and concise then it should be discounted and not interpreted to be anything more than what it is. Clauses like general welfare clauses are an example as compared to clauses such as:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

If the purpose of the document is to limit the power of the federal government then the constitution should be interpreted without making any assumptions regarding meaning.

For example, if the federal government wants to create a new department to regulate water then there had better be a clause in the constitution explicitly giving the government the legal authority to regulate water. If there isn’t then they do not have the authority and only via an amendment to the constitution can they gain it. Amendments are difficult to make and that is precisely what the authors of the constitution wanted: to make it difficult for the government to increase its power. Again, the amendment process is meaningless if the clause "general welfare" means anything they want. No need to amend the constitution we’ll just say it’s providing for the general welfare.

Any clause that could be interpreted to mean many things therefore means nothing.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

My state’s Public Records Law, in short, allows any citizen to request and receive any and all information that is of public record in the state. So I did.

I recently received a speeding ticket and wanted to prepare for my day in court and therefore requested all educational and service-related information about the sheriff’s deputy who cited me.

I received the information and had to go down to the county courthouse to pay for it: $53. When the young lady from the court house called me to tell me the records were ready, I specifically asked if I could pay with a debit or credit card. She told me yes.

There are two cashier’s windows at the county courthouse: one has a big sign over the top "BAILS." Pretty clear to me. The other reads: "PROCESS AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS." Although, neither seemed appropriate for someone paying for open records requests, I certainly knew I wasn’t paying someone’s bail, so given my choices I queued up in the "PROCESS AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS" line. I waited some 20 minutes to get to the window and have the stone faced, indifferent, I-hate-my-life-just-shoot-me-now-and-do-me-a-favor county employee tell me I need to pay in the "BAILS" line. The cashier for the "BAILS" line was sitting elbow-to-elbow with my friend at the "PROCESS AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS" window but he couldn’t simply hand her my papers. I waited another 20 minutes.

When I reached the cashier window with all the usual credit card logos on the window: Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, American Express, I was told I couldn’t pay with a credit or debit card. Only cash or check. I mentioned that I specifically called to verify this and was told I could. She said: "Sorry." I then pointed to all the credit card logos on the window to which she replied: "That’s only for bails." So I shot her.

Not really. What I did was ask her: "What’s the difference? You have the resources to process a credit or debit card payment; couldn’t you simply do that for me?" "No," she replied, "next."

2) The state as an economic gangster

Parts of the interstate highways in my state are toll roads. Being the almost cashless society that we live in today — all banks offer debit cards — it’s becoming more and more usual for people to carry less and less cash on them. I am certainly one of those people. I find it convenient not to have to worry about exactly how much something costs and then going to the bank or ATM to withdraw exactly that amount I need when I want to buy something.

Probably 99% of all private businesses have the resources and the ability to process debit or credit card transactions regardless of the context: in a retail store, at a movie theater, an eating establishment, at a sporting event, in a taxi, even at 40,000 ft. in an airplane. But not my state. Even at such a simple point-of-sale as a toll booth it’s cash only.

So what do you do if you don’t have enough cash on you? Well, the state realizes that mistakes can happen and someone may not have enough cash on them. From their website:

• The Tollway grants a 7-day grace period to pay your missed toll.
• The Tollway recognizes that honest mistakes happen — we allow 2 mistakes in a 24-month period. Upon your third unpaid toll within a 2-year period, a violation notice will be issued and fines assessed.
• You are allowed to pay up to 4 missed tolls within a 12 month period. After four payments, additional missed tolls will be treated as violations.

An unpaid toll is when you don’t have cash on you and you’re expected to pay it online or via the post after the fact, and you simply choose not to pay it.

A missed toll, however, is simply the fact that you didn’t have cash on you. Even if you subsequently pay the toll online or via the post you are still only allowed to do this 4 times a year and after that you are in violation. To clarify then: even if you have a million dollars in your checking account and a credit card with a $100,000 limit, if you don’t have fiat money on you more than four times a year then you can be held in violation of the law. Even worse if you really do simply forget to ensure that you have cash handy, you will be penalized for simply being human. The state of course, being our moral compass, knows how many missed tolls is human and how many thereafter is just being a bad person and trying to cheat them. That number is 4.

The more laws there are, the more criminals you have.

So, if you don’t have cash then you have 7 days to pony up your fair share of the cost for these roads — funny how these roads never seem to be paid for — or it will become a violation. If you don’t have enough cash more than twice in two years and you don’t pay them within 7 days then It becomes a violation and from their website:

Failure to pay tolls can result in fines and possible suspension of your license plate and/or your driver’s license.

So, as ridiculous as it may seem, for choosing not to carry and transact business with fiat currency you could actually end up losing your driving privileges. That is to say: your freedom to move around the state at your free will.

The cost of this travesty of justice against the state? The cost in terms of lost revenue to the state that is so great that anyone being found guilty of this heinous crime should be immobilized? The imperative nature of this money? The cost of a toll?

One dollar.

Fines for not paying that one dollar on time begin at $20 and go up to $50 or more culminating in your loss of driving privileges.

So three times in two years would be a total of three dollars over a 24-month period of time. Clearly cause to consider rescinding your papers comrade and limiting your movement. So it would be wise to remember: you can either make it easy on yourself and give us our dollar voluntarily or we will take it from you and you don’t want that.

Now, I don’t know if anyone has ever actually lost their driving privileges for not paying tolls but that is the actual statute in my state. The state feels it necessary to use such fear mongering tactics like these to extort money out of us. As absurd as it seems to think that the state would be so arrogant as to do something like this, they don’t hesitate to pursue legislation like this and then put it out there on their website for all to see just to let us know who really works for whom. And, if we push them, exactly what measures they are prepared to go to in order to get you to comply.

For a dollar.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

In Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., of all places to protest, the plan was to dump one million tea bags in the park, but the brave dissidents never did it because they forgot to get the proper permits. Are you kidding me? What is civil disobedience without civil disobedience? They even went so far as to say that they were willing to put down plastic tarps and clean up after themselves.

That’s like saying we don’t agree with your oppressive, unconstitutional despotism of our nation and to show our ire in no uncertain terms we’re going to break public law and disrupt the peace so take that, nah- nah-ne-boo-boo. But don’t worry because we’ll put everything back when we’re done as if nothing happened cuz we don’t want any trouble!

Videos on the Internet of Lafayette Park show people standing around in their trendy turtlenecks and Tommy Hilfiger and North Face jackets, chatting, socializing, drinking coffee and talking on their cell phones. Some dressed in colonial garb (how cute) and waving flags. Others even break into a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner followed by a chant of "USA, USA, USA." What a terrific show of meaningless symbolism.

Who are they chanting to? The buildings in front of them? The birds in the trees? Themselves? What was this supposed to do, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to surmise that it did NOTHING! All the politicians were inside, smugly and comfortably seated in their expensive leather chairs that we paid for. They were discussing their next round of special interest pandering and deficit spending at our expense while we mingled as if at a, well, tea party. But not the sort of 1773 but rather more like the sort at 4 p.m. in England that is served with crumpets.

The politicians could have cared less about the goings on outside and NO ONE took it to them. Shame on us. No one made sure they took notice. No one was put out one bit. No economic loss to the government whatsoever, as was the purpose of the original tea party, so why should they notice?

Is this like giving to a charity? You write a check to feed a starving child for 10 cents a day in some far off, nameless, faceless country and you feel better about yourself?

I attended a "tea party" in the Midwest on Wednesday and there were only about 200 people there. And it was literally a tea party: people came with their coffee mugs and sandwiches, holding signs and standing around and chatting and socializing and then everyone went home. No passion. No signs of real frustration or discontent. No real commitment to changing anything. You know why? Because nobody wants to fire the first shot! Everybody wants change, but only if they don’t have to pay for it. Only if their comfortable lives don’t have to be disrupted for their freedom. What a bunch of crap.

Then I see all these political pundits ( idiots ) on CNN talking about how the tea party movement is nothing more than a partisan, Republican, conservative movement against the Obama administration and how the majority of Americans agree with the taxing and borrowing and spending. Some numb-nuts CNN political (anal)yst named Jeff Toobin says that the Texas state legislative resolution to reaffirm their state’s sovereignty is a fantasy. Are you kidding me? State’s sovereignty is a fantasy? Well I guess that says it all. Come on everyone, down the rabbit hole.

[Background music] One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small…

Welcome to the other side of the looking glass everybody. My name’s Alice and I’ll be your host for the mad tea party today. Let me introduce some other guests: the Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, Rod Blagojevich, Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton all the AIG executives and many, many more. Don’t worry you’ll have time to get to know them all since you can’t leave no matter what you do so might as well just get used to it. Resistance is futile.

No doubt the majority of Americans didn’t want to go to war against the British in 1776. But would anyone say now that it was the wrong thing to do? No doubt the majority of Americans didn’t want a civil war. Both those wars were, at their core, about state’s rights. About oppressive governments trying to overreach their authority and impose unlawful mandates on the states. It was about their freedom to do what they wish with their lives.

I think we have met the enemy and it is us. We’re a bunch of fast food nourished, MTV anesthetized, shopping mall, plug-in-drug (aka television) addicts who will do anything to preserve that way of life at least until we die. After that who cares?

We’re a clinically obese, socially disconnected, politically inept and intellectually bankrupt nation of douche bags who deserve everything they get.

The movement has no leader. When I listen to anyone other than Ron Paul, Peter Schiff or Lew Rockwell speak about the issues we discuss on LRC I might as well be listening to any other political party spokesperson. They sound just the same. They dress just the same. They say the same old tired things. Ron Paul has even mentioned at times that the Libertarian party has become just another political party interested more in their political posturing rather than liberty. They have all the same sorts of infighting and power struggles that are symptomatic of the fact that they have lost their way.

Rallying the troops to vote more like-minded individuals into office won’t work. That’s an old, failing strategy. When will someone step forward with the courage, character, wisdom and intelligence to lead our nation into the 21st century the way our forefathers led it into the 19th century?

Will it be Texas governor Rick Perry? Perry is using rhetoric about seceding from the union. That is EXACTLY the kind of thing we need. I believe, given the other states with similar resolutions in their legislatures, that it would begin a domino effect. It would give people a chance to actually have a clear reason to fight: their state’s rights of sovereignty and they would know that they have the state’s resources behind them. Unfortunately, even though it’s clear what a boost Texas seceding would be in uniting us, I have no doubt that Perry is not up to the task and is using the issue as nothing more than a rallying point for reelection.

Where have all the heroes gone? Where are all the pioneers? Where are the visionaries? Where are the true statesmen? Where are the defenders of freedom? What has happened to the American Spirit of life and liberty? I guess they’re all at the mall or Starbucks and are too fat to get up out of their chair and fight. Or they’re looking forward to retirement and the "good life" after spending their life being a good soldier and playing by the rules and saving for the "golden years" while their real golden years of youth were passing them by. Certainly they can’t be asked to risk all that for something as silly as their children’s futures. How selfish of me.

Or maybe we don’t want to risk our children’s well-being now, so we defer it until they’re adults and let them deal with the fact that they can’t afford college or health care or a home without going into enormous debt and we never teach them the importance of things like: character, honor, integrity, truth and freedom but rather teach them how to live in fear and how important it is to get a "good job" and play by the rules and to go along to get along and that will be safe.

We’re pathetic.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and Oxford educated economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

Obviously, I am not a writer by profession and sometimes get going a little two fast and take the first suggestion that MS Word throws at me without thinking much about it.

Honestly, the first time I herd the word homophone, I thought it was a cellular device that Richard Simmons used. (short comedic pause four bad attempt at humor)

Maybe the problem has to with the fact that I’ve spent almost half of my adult life oversees. Aye was to years in central America with the U.S. Navy and 10 years in Europe. Eye am fluent in 3 languages ( English, German and Romanian ) and get bye with Spanish in the present tense, and tend two confuse and mix the words in each. Sometimes eye can knot even remember the simplest word in English like: all ready, while being able two spit it out immediately inn German, "schon," oar in Romanian, "déjà." Sew, rather than being good at won language, it wood seam eye am mediocre at three with my biggest problem being homophones.

Regardless, the most important thing of coarse inn our continued fight two protect hour civil liberties as Americans hear at home is that we r able two understand won another. That we can communicate on a level that is unambiguous and clear. That the hissle and the fissle of my gissle is dope and ewe can feel me dog. That the egregious nature of my prose is knot two eclectic oar monolithic sew as two detract from the central massage: live free oar dye!

Having said that then, aye would like two take the thyme two thank those who have taken the thyme two right two me and point out my mistakes. Knot just anyone wood make the kind of effort kneaded two dew that, sew eye am inn yore debt. Aye no, eye do knot all ways have the thyme to reply two everyone, butt please no that eye am reading your emails and dew appreciate them. Sum of them make me laugh as much as eye hope mine dew ewe. And eye feel my writing skills r all ready improving.

It’s exactly this sort of continued kinship that eye am beginning to feel with my fellow Americans and most specifically with the readers of LRC. You are knot only an intellectually astute group of folks butt also a group of folks witch exhibits a degree of reason and humanity rarely seen today and witch is sorely kneaded.

Four sew long eye have looked fore a place where eye could meat other like minded individuals, and it wood seam eye have found it and just inn a Nick of thyme.

Considering what is at steak, we can knot afford to let hour guard down. Considering the heavy tacks burden, monetary and non-monetary, that awl Americans bear. Considering the heavy cost wee have awl, all ready paid, wee must stay the coarse regardless of the consequences. Wee must remain Virgil at all thymes lest wee forget y wee r hear, who wee r and what wii can b.

Inn clothing, eye wood simply like two say: keep up the good work everyone and keep me on my tows!

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and Oxford educated economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

The diet industry is a multibillion dollar a year industry that thrives on people’s stupidity and weakness. They offer this quick weight loss fix, that surefire diet, those diet pills. They package them with sheik names like: the South Beach diet, or Jenny Craig. There’s Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice. We even have "fat farms."

You can lose 20 pounds in 20 days; 6 inches in 6 minutes; you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. There’s the chocolate cake and beer diet and yes you can still lose weight!

Well I’ve decided to get in on the "feeding" frenzy and introduce my new weight loss plan. But I need a name for it; something sheik, hip and catchy. How about the: you’re an idiot diet? I like it!

So, here’s the plan: eat less and exercise more. Now I realize that could be complicated for those on the Jenny Craig diet to understand so let me break it down in simpler terms: stop going out and plopping yourself on a bar stool and eating chicken wings and drinking beer because you look like Jabba the Hut.

Go out and walk around the block once today; twice tomorrow until you can walk a mile, then two.

Turn off your iPod, put down your cell phone, get off your ass and tune in to life. Get a grip on what everybody else already knows: you need to change your lifestyle to a healthy lifestyle and losing weight and keeping it off will be a consequence of that.

The laws of physics are the same for everyone. It’s a physical impossibility for you not to lose weight if you use more calories than you take in. Ask a super model.

In the immortal words of Dean Wormer: fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

I love this one. I’m going to employ the transitive law of logic here: If A then B. If B then C. Hence, If A then C.

Here’s A:

If the constitution is open to interpretation then of course, as we’ve seen, every administration will interpret it to their advantage.

Here’s B:

If every administration interprets the constitution differently then that means that it has many meanings.

Here’s C:

If the constitution has many meanings, then it is by definition, meaningless

Our founding fathers based our entire government, our economic system, our monetary system, our national defense, our justice system, our civil rights on this document. It’s obvious they did not intend for it to be meaningless hence it is not open to interpretation.

Of course "interpretation" here means soulless, slick government lawyers and justices abusing and manipulating its meaning.

I’ve followed with great interest Dr. Walter Block’s trials and tribulations with the politically correct thought police. Dr. Block mentioned Dr. James Gwartney at Florida State University with whom he had on occasion collaborated on labor economic issues. As it turns out I was Dr. Gwartney’s graduate assistant at FSU in the early nineties and so it’s not surprising that I received the exact sort of education back then that Dr. Block argues against now: assuming all things equal, if a woman makes a lower wage for similar work then it must be due to discrimination in the work place.

As with losing weight, unless the laws of human nature are suspended in your world, this wage gap could not persist. What it assumes is that male entrepreneurs and business owners are so sexist that they would rather discriminate against women than make a profit. Anyone who does business like that won’t be in business long.

If I have a new business, for example, and I can hire women to do equal work (experience, education, quality of work, productivity, travel, overtime, etc…) as men but at a significantly lower wage, then of course I’m going to do so. In doing so, I’ll be able to offer my product at a lower cost than my competitors who hire all men. Seeing their profits drop, my competitors will try to cut their costs which will include lowering wages of their male workers until they are on par with women’s wages. I challenge anyone to try and convince me that a successful business man would choose to have higher costs if he didn’t have to.

There’s nothing in the economic or psychological literature that would indicate that misogynistic pride brings a business man more utility than increased wealth.

So what can explain the differences in wages in the work place? Dr. Block offers some empirical explanations as do others but one thing is for sure: it’s not all due to discrimination; so get over it. That old excuse is nothing more than a cliché, a cop out, a political platform…said the middle-aged white man.

And the list goes on. This argument is so tired and worn out it’s a sure way to demonstrate that you are in fact going through life fat, drunk and stupid.

I’d like to shoot the guy that came up with this crap. Specifically since my best friend is someone who I can trust to tell my wife that I was with him last night when she calls.

I have absolutely no idea what a soul mate is.

I get the lover part but it just feels wrong limiting myself to just one woman. Not my decision, but mother nature’s.

As for a confidant: see my first point.

Most days I go home, kiss the cat, kick the kids and sufficiently sedate myself with bourbon and hope to successfully coexist with my wife until bedtime. Anything more is a bonus.

Moving right along …

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and Oxford educated economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

I have been a customer of Bank of America since October 2006. In that time I have maintained, in good faith, a checking account, a savings account, an investment account and two credit card accounts.

This letter is to inform you that I am displeased with the service I’ve received from BOA and will no longer be doing business with you.

It has become evident to me that in light of BOA’s irresponsible and abusive overdraft and credit card policies and their associated fees which are in direct opposition to your customer’s wishes and in light of your dishonesty regarding your concern for your customers’ welfare and in light of the moral hazard that you’ve accepted in receiving constitutionally illegal appropriations from the federal government to the tune of some $150 billion and in light of your breach of our good faith contract to provide me the understood banking services in a reasonable and professional manner, I find BOA to be a disreputable organization and have chosen to no longer do business with you.

As of today, I have an outstanding negative balance in my checking account of $440 as well as two outstanding balances on my credit cards totaling approximately $7,800.

I consider my debt to BOA to be paid in full by BOA for the following reason: from information I could find on the Internet BOA has a U.S. consumer base of some $29 million. I calculated my share of the bailout funds allocated to BOA then to be approximately $5200.

This is money I’ve already given to BOA from my federal tax allowances. Now this is just a loan understand. BOA is responsible for paying this money back in full and with interest, to me. Since the federal government made this loan without the constitutional authority to do so and with my money I would like to inform BOA of my terms of agreement which are in addition to whatever TOA you might already have with the feds.

The loan origination fee is $440.

I will start you out with an introductory rate of 10% APR. I reserve the right, however, to change this rate at any time and without notification. Like right now. It just went up to 15%. See how that works? Now as you make repayments to the federal government I will calculate my share of those repayments and apply my entire share to your calculated accrued interest for the year first before I apply any of it to the principle. BTW, your APR just increased to 20%. This is in the best interest of BOA so that if you have other loan payments to make, you won’t be overburdened by unmanageable principle payments to me. Of course the juice will continue to run on your principle.

Furthermore, since you’ve been shown to be financially insolvent and on the verge of bankruptcy requiring a bailout from your customers, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut off your line of credit from me at $5200 but of course I’ll continue to calculate the accrued interest and expect you to pay it in full. In the case that the federal government decides to loan you additional bailout funds even though your credit with me has been canceled, you will then exceed your available credit limit with me and I will assess BOA an “over the credit limit” fee in the amount of $1000. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about this fee as it is my lending policy. I should also inform you that there is a penalty for early repayment of $1000.

So to formalize our contract: you currently owe me $5200 at an APR of 40% (another increase) for the fiscal year 2009. This calculates to an annual interest payment of $2080. Any outstanding principle remaining after fiscal year 2009, along with over the limit fees, will accrue interest at an APR of your current APR + 10%.

If you pay your loan off in full in 2009 at the current annual interest rate of 50% (did it again) then you’ll owe me a total of: $7800 which along with my loan origination fee settles your debt with me and hence my debt with you, assuming you don’t exceed your available credit limit. In this case please post a check for $1000 to the last known address you have for me.

Since the feds loaned you my money without discussing it with me, this TOA is implicitly accepted by you and must be honored.

I realize that some of my terms might seem excessive but trust me: it’s in your best interest. I get nothing out of this.

If you have any questions regarding your loan or the TOA, who gives a s__t? But if you do feel the need to speak with an impersonal, automated, touch-tone, menu-driven customer service system followed by an impersonal, auto-programmed, mono-tone, policy-driven, lobotomized, carbon based unit, then dial: 800-432-1000 and enjoy.

With best regards,
Don Cooper

Don Cooper [send him mail] is a Florida native, Navy veteran and Oxford educated economist living and working in the Midwest.

Don Cooper Archives

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is one’s right to alter or to abolish one’s allegiance, in the hopes of instituting a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is the right of the individual, it is his duty, to oppose such government, and to do what’s necessary to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of citizens of these United states; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of most recent past and present presidents and legislators of the United States of America is a history of repeated civil rights violations, constitutional travesties, usurpations of state’s rights, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute political control over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The unconstitutional regulation by at least one federal agency, office, commission, bureau, or department of all goods and services traded domestically and internationally.

Establishment, in direct violation of the constitution, of a privately governed central bank whose sole purpose is to manipulate the monetary markets and which is not subject to public scrutiny and whose actions undermine the value of the American dollar to the detriment of the welfare of these United states.

Unconstitutional invasion, overthrow and occupation of sovereign foreign countries which pose no threat to the security of these United states based on political ideology to the detriment of the foreign nation and the welfare of the citizens of these United states.

Unconstitutional presence in allied foreign countries which pose no threat to the security of these United states and which levies unconscionable debt on the current and future citizens of these United states.

The implementation of an electoral system intended to marginalize third parties thereby limiting the choices presented to the electorate and giving an unfair advantage to the incumbents and leading to one party and/or one family or members of previous administrations also holding high-ranking offices in successive administrations, effectively creating an unconstitutional monarchy.

Unconstitutional manipulation of the tax laws to serve political agendas to the detriment of the welfare of these United states.

Unconstitutional alliances with special interests and big businesses to the detriment of the welfare of these United states.

Severe unconstitutional civil rights violations to include:

Restrictions on the freedom of speech.

Restrictions on our rights to bear arms.

Restrictions of use of private property.

Unconstitutional wire tapping on the citizens of these United states.

Torture.

Suspension of habeas corpus.

Furthermore, the consistently irresponsible behavior on the part of the elected congress in passing, without fully reading or understanding, legislation which violates the civil rights of these United states and levies unconscionable debt on the current and future citizens of these United states.

The impractical and logistically impossible size of the federal government makes it, by definition, an inefficient leviathan to the detriment of the welfare of these United states.

In every stage of these digressions citizens of these United states have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A president or legislator, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

I, therefore, a citizen of the United states of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority given to me by nature and the constitution of these United states, solemnly publish and declare, that I am, and of right ought to be free and independent from the federal government; that I am absolved from all allegiance to the federal government, and that all political connection between myself and the federal government, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent citizen of these United states, I have full power to bear arms and defend myself against the federal government, conclude peace with the federal government, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent citizens may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the human spirit and the American spirit, I pledge to these United states my life, my fortune and my sacred honor.

Don Cooper [send him mail] is an economist living and working in Atlanta, Georgia.

Don Cooper Archives