Ron Paul finally has one good idea. We have a piracy problem in the world, but combating it with a professional navy is expensive work. So we can turn to an old, forgotten power as a solution: the Letter of Marque. It’s right in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

The basic idea is that Congress will empower privateers to capture pirates and destroy their vessels. It gets more complicated when you have to work out the bounty payouts and deposits. Generally speaking though Paul’s plan is to leave pirate hunting to private citizens. I frickin’ love the idea, but then again I think all pirates should be executed. There’s bound to be a fair number of people who disagree with me. It’s a Ron Paul idea so it will go nowhere, but damn, I just have to give credit where it’s due.

I saw this video this morning and man did I have to cringe while watching it. It’s South Carolina Congressman Gresham Barrett being lambasted by the crowd at the Tax Day Tea Party in Greenville, South Carolina. It’s merciless. People turned their backs to him. There was one guy who shouted “Go Home” during Barrett’s whole speech. Everyone in that crowded booed for 5 minutes straight.

What did Barrett do to desire this ire? He voted in favor of funding the $700 billion TARP program. Supposedly he’s going to run for South Carolina governor. I can’t see that contest ending well for him.

Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, threw his support behind a resolution that reasserts the legitimacy of the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution. In doing so Perry has clearly branded himself a rightwing extremist, at least according to the Department of Homeland Security. Check out this quote from a DHS report on “Rightwing Extremism“.

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

The emphasis is mine. The DHS has declared anyone who supports federalism a rightwing extremist. The Bill of Rights is a rightwing extremist document thanks to the 10th Amendment Rick Perry made such a fuss over.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

If that’s not clear enough for you, it means the federal government gets the powers named in the Constitution. All the other powers not mentioned are left to the States or citizenry. And now if you agree with that you’re on the road to becoming a terrorist. Amazing how one of the principles this nation was founded on becomes a warning that brands people as radicals. I guess I’m one of them. Reading this news today makes me wonder if our federal government is becoming the oppressive behemoth the founders warned about. What if that’s the direction we’re heading in?

This news does give me a positive view of Rick Perry, and I suspect he’s trying to raise his profile for a presidential run. Like a few other Republicans out there he’s someone trying to showcase himself as a classic conservative. It would be refreshing to have a politician who seriously wants to remove government from our daily lives. Is Rick Perry the real deal? I have no idea. I haven’t paid any attention to Texas politics. I’m sure we’ll hear more from him though. He recognizes there’s a power vacuum in the Republican Party and he’ll try to become the standard bearer. I can’t wait to hear more from him.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

¹⁴And the State of Hawaii went forth, and saw a great disaster in Polihale State Park, and was moved with compassion, and proposed funding $4 million to repair.

¹⁵And when the State of Hawaii examined its budget, his accountants came to him, saying, This budget is a desert place, and the funding is not allocated; send the multitude of merchants of Polihale State Park, that they may go into the villages, and find themselves other jobs.

¹⁶But the State of Hawaii said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them a date two years hence when the repairs shall be.

¹⁷And they say unto him, We have here but a simple bridge repair.

¹⁸He said, Bring the plans hither to me.

¹⁹And he took the bridge repair job, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and wasted time, and overspent on labor and supplies.

²⁰And they did all plan $4 million to build a short bridge two years hence.

– The Book of the Bureaucrats: Chapter 14: Verses 14-20.

Yes the State of Hawaii worked a miracle. A bridge was destroyed in Polihale State Park thanks to bad flooding. Hawaii figured replacing that bridge would cost $4 million and couldn’t be done for two years. The merchants whose livelihoods depend on tourists visiting the park found that intolerable and actually did something about it. They replaced the bridge in eight days for a cost far less than $4 million. Hawaii took a simple construction project, and using the power of bureaucracy, turned it into an expensive and time-consuming one. Government be praised!

Gee, I can’t wait until the government is in charge of my healthcare.

This day is an embarassment. Today US sailors retreated under gunfire from Somali pirates. The sailors did not return fire. How have we come to this? How is it that the US Navy is being held at bay by a gang of pirates?

The West is a civilization of cowards. Europe and now America are incapable of showing any fortitude. You would think pirates of all people would be dealt with quickly and harshly. Instead here we are standing around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the FBI to fly in and start a criminal investigation. WHY?!?! Pirates do not have rights. Pirates get shot and dumped in the ocean. That’s it. There are no negotiations or investigations. For centuries when a navy found a pirate vessel, they hunted it down. Every pirate was killed and there was no question that was the correct action. When did that change? When did piracy become respectable? How can pirates have defenders?

Today the US Navy should take on the role the British held in the 19th century and police the oceans. Britain was at the height of its naval prominence and used that to keep the world’s shipping lanes open and safe. The continual growth in world trade was thanks to Britain. Now that the US has the dominant navy we should take up that responsibility. Do you think the British had any qualms about killing pirates? I don’t and America shouldn’t. We should hunt them down and kill them. Sink their ships and leave them to drown. Execute them and dump them in the ocean. Bomb their ports and give them no place to shelter. This is what pirates deserve and nothing more.

Our civilization is over. If we’re going to quiver over what to do with pirates, we’re no match for a real military.  The West shall drift and decay until some other civilization realizes our incapability. Then we will be no more.

Ever since gay marriage became an issue, I’ve shared the opinion with anyone who asked that government should not be in the business of regulating marriage. Marriage is a religious ceremony. You don’t see the government regulating baptisms and Catholic Communion (except Connecticut maybe). Why should the government stick its nose into who you marry? It’s a pretty militant libertarian stand, and I really never believed it would catch on anywhere.

California has proved me wrong! If 700,000 signatures can be collected we’ll get a referendum on the ballot that, if passed, would make California the first state to do away with civil marriage. Those are two big IFs, but I never expected this idea to even go this far. This proposed referendum is the idea of two college students in southern California. And they’re not gay, apparently. They made sure to slip that in.

I would be very surprised if this thing got 700,000 people to sign it, and I can’t believe there’s any way in the world it will pass. Most of the prop 8 supporters will see it as a spiteful attack on marriage. I would bet some of the no-on-8 crowd will call it a cowardly retreat. What disappoints me though is the justification these two students gave for their proposal. I don’t see this as the equal rights issue they claim it to be. This is a question of government intrusion. What justification is there for government to involve itself in religion? And yes, marriage is a religious ceremony. Don’t tell me it is a civil right or is ordained by the government. Marriage wasn’t created by an ancient Babylonian bureaucrat. Marriage evolved from religion. Your religion should decide who you can marry, not your government. And spare me the argument that government must propagate the stable family unit. Government derives its authority from the will of the people. If the people want to be a bunch of unmarried sluts, its not the place of government to tell them no. Society should influence the government, but the government should not influence society.

So really these two kids stumbled upon the libertarian solution. I doubt they realize that, and they probably would try to shy away from it if confronted. I suppose I should be content that people would embrace this idea, but I’m not. It just doesn’t feel right if people support it for the wrong reason.

I hope you watched ALL of that video. I know it’s 9 minutes long but it’s well worth it. It’s the end of an occupation of an NYU cafeteria by a student organization named Take Back NYU. They planned to seize the cafeteria and I guess start a chain reaction that would topple NYU’s administration and lead to a state for the Palestinians I think. One of the big problems was their scatterbrained agenda. Here are there 13 demands. I copied that from their website.

1. Full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.
2. Full compensation for all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.
3. Public release of NYU’s annual operating budget, including a full list of university expenditures, salaries for all employees compensated on a semester or annual basis, funds allocated for staff wages, contracts to non-university organizations for university construction and services, financial aid data for each college, and money allocated to each college, department, and administrative unit of the university. Furthermore, this should include a full disclosure of the amount and sources of the university’s funding.
4. Disclosure of NYU’s endowment holdings, investment strategy, projected endowment growth, and persons, corporations and firms involved in the investment of the university’s endowment funds. Additionally, we demand an endowment oversight body of students, faculty and staff who exercise shareholder proxy voting power for the university’s investments.
5. That the NYU Administration agrees to resume negotiations with GSOC/UAW Local 2110 – the union for NYU graduate assistants, teaching assistants, and research assistants. That NYU publicly affirm its commitment to respect all its workers, including student employees, by recognizing their right to form unions and to bargain collectively. That NYU publicly affirm that it will recognize workers’ unions through majority card verification.
6. That NYU signs a contract guaranteeing fair labor practices for all NYU employees at home and abroad. This contract will extend to subcontracted workers, including bus drivers, food service employees and anyone involved in the construction, operation and maintenance at any of NYU’s non-U.S. sites.
7. The establishment of a student elected Socially Responsible Finance Committee. This Committee will have full power to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions. The committee will be composed of two subcommittees: one to assess the operating budget and one to assess the endowment holdings. Each committee will be composed of ten students democratically elected from the graduate and under-graduate student bodies. All committee decisions will be made a strict majority vote, and will be upheld by the university. All members of the Socially Responsible Finance Committee will sit on the board of trustees, and will have equal voting rights. All Socially Responsible Finance Committee and Trustee meetings shall be open to the public, and their minutes made accessible electronically through NYU’s website. Elections will be held the second Tuesday of every March beginning March 10^th 2009, and meetings will be held biweekly beginning the week of March 30^th 2009.
8. That the first two orders of business of the Socially Responsible Finance committee will be:
   a) An in depth investigation of all investments in war and genocide profiteers, as well as companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
   b) A reassessment of the recently lifted of the ban on Coca Cola products.
9. That annual scholarships be provided for thirteen Palestinian students, starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. These scholarships will include funding for books, housing, meals and travel expenses.
10. That the university donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.
11. Tuition stabilization for all students, beginning with the class of 2012. All students will pay their initial tuition rate throughout the course of their education at New York University.  Tuition rates for each successive year will not exceed the rate of inflation, nor shall they exceed one percent. The university shall meet 100% of government-calculated student financial need.
12. That student groups have priority when reserving space in the buildings owned or leased by New York University, including, and especially, the Kimmel Center.
13. That the general public have access to Bobst Library.

I think this video shows their other problems: cluelessness, lack of planning, repetition of meaningless buzzwords. I can only assume they thought NYU would cave in immediately. Why else would you go through with a pointless exercise like this?

I actually feel some sympathy for the cameraman. It’s pretty clear he knows he’s lost control of the situation but has no idea how to proceed. Somehow he never got around to planning for this moment. Really, the most pathetic scene was him taking inventory. NYU won’t negotiate. His protesting comrades won’t listen to his cries of “consensus”. Yet he needs to find something to do in that hard-fought consensus zone.

NYU showed a good balance of strength and patience. They gave the students a chance to leave on their own accord. When they refused, the guards marched in. Simple and stern. You could really see where the bearded guy’s patience wore thin though. I guess he heard “consensus” one too many times. He stopped bothering with the cameraman and moved on to giving the guards orders. Pretty damn funny. They all showed much more restraint than I would have. Frankly, I would have given them one warning that they would have to leave on their own or they would be seized by the guards. Once they refused and I had the guards enter, I would have instructed them to immediately restrain these protesters; just put them in shackles and drag them out. It’s a good thing I don’t have to suffer these fools.

Just for giggles, read the comments at NYU Local.

Saving is getting its reputation dragged through the mud. To my astonishment, economists and politicians want to keep stimulus money out of peoples’ hands for fear that they would save it. The money would just be “wasted” that way. No instead we should throw cash at the construction industry. Somehow that’s productive.

Now I’m not going to say no infrastructure project is worthwhile. However I do not believe any bill that comes from Congress will be efficient. The wasteful programs will absolutely outnumber the worthwhile ones. Plus, infrastructure recoups its investment over many years. It will not provide the jumpstart that politicians are claiming. Please also consider that new road building has given diminishing returns since the 1950s and transit repairs do not recoup their expense in increased economic activity. Also, one thing that no one has considered is the expense we’re adding to future generations from this construction program. Everything we build to stimulate today’s economy will cost money to maintain in the future. This stimulus bill will become a permanent expansion of the government budget.

But that’s not my focus here. I don’t want the concept of saving to be besmirched without a defense. Getting money directly to people and business is not wasted money. Imagine that we all get government checks again, and everyone decides to put that money in their savings account. This can be a good thing. When all that extra money is deposited we’re a step closer to restoring confidence. People feel more secure because they padded their savings. Maybe it’s only worth a month of groceries, but that’s one more month where people won’t worry about eating. It’s one more month of peace of mind. Generating that peace of mind is what will create consumer demand and pull the country out of this slump.

There is a benefit on the bank side of this transaction too. Banks are just as scared about the economy as regular people are. The reason they have cut back on lending is fear they won’t have enough cash on hand to meet their bad loans. If people save more money, it increases the amount in bank deposits. This is money banks can use to improve their balance sheets. More cash on hand will bring down the level of panic in the financial sector and get us closer to resuming a more normal level on lending.

We’re too obsessed with finding a whiz-bang moment where the economy is magically restored. It’s as if economists believe there is this one economic input that must be tweaked to solve all our problems. Gee, maybe if the Fed Funds Rate was just another 25 bps lower, or unemployment payments were extended another 8 weeks the economy would just turn around. Recoveries do not happen like that. Emerging from a recession is a gradual process.

By the way I’m not in favor of a one time payment like we had back in Q2 of 2008. I just took offense at the idea that saving money is a bad thing. As a stimulus measure handing out cash to people has a very limited psychological benefit. I would like to see the sustained effort that would come from suspending payroll taxes take effect. Let’s stop collecting income, Social Security and Medicare taxes for two years. The government can borrow to make up the shortfall, as it has shown no fear of doing. It would be wonderful if cuts in those programs also occurred, but if I suggested that I would be entering the realm of fantasy.

And while I’m on my soapbox, I still think exempting profits on bank loans from taxes would provide a good incentive to banks to loosen their credit requirements.

The big international story right now is Israel vs. Hamas in Gaza and it seems to be painted as a David vs. Goliath story by most of the news outlets I’ve watched. Actually I should clarify that. Most news outlets aren’t mentioning Hamas. David is the innocent Palestinian people being bludgeoned by an evil and cruel Goliath (Israel).

However I have yet to see any of these news outlets or even street protesters take up the cause against Sri Lanka. Last week the Sri Lankan government stormed the last city held by the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist rebel group. Where is the outcry? Shouldn’t we be lecturing Sri Lanka about their lack of proportionality? Why isn’t anyone calling them Nazis?

I’m not going to fault the street protesters for their lack of attention. Most of those people couldn’t find Sri Lanka on a map, so I wouldn’t expect them to know about the Tamil Tigers. The hypocrities are all the news outlets that have been criticizing Israel’s response. Israel hit back hard at terrorists who were killing their citizens. Sri Lanka did the same thing. To rage against Israel but ignore Sri Lanka, when as a news organization you’re expected to know what’s going on around the world, is the height of hypocrisy.

I stopped being sympathetic towards Israel when, years ago, I was watching a documentary that said in the 1980s Israel identified US spies in the Soviet Union in order to conclude an agreement on Soviet Jewish immigrants. Our ally betrayed us over an immigration deal. Bastards. Unfortunately though no amount of my Googling has been able to corroborate this documentary. Still the possibility has tainted my opinion of the country. I think that permanently changed when I saw this picture today.

Wow that sign raises so many questions. First off does this guy think the word ”juice” as in “orange juice” is also used to refer to Jews? Does he refuse to drink any juice until Palestine is free? Maybe instead he drinks “orange jews”. I wonder at what point did he insert “(zionist)” into his sign. Did he think that would make the sign less inflammatory?

What really amazes me is how many people in the world are on the same side as this Islamic scholar. I don’t begrudge the Israelis from defending themselves. I completely disagree with these demands that Israel stop attacking Hamas in Gaza. Hamas fires off rockets at Israel everyday. Because these are crude handmade weapons, sometimes they kill Israelis and sometimes they don’t. Israel responds to these attacks by bombing Hamas’s buildings and armories. They even send warning messages to civilians in Gaza. Yet Israel gets denounced all around the world. Somehow it’s disproportionate for Israel to strike back. They’re supposed to accept Hamas indiscriminately firing rockets as normal. This is craziness. Ignoring an attack only makes your attacker bolder. They learn there are no consequences for attacking you.

By the way I also reject the idea that by retailiating Israel is only radicalizing the Palestinian population. Believing that means you believe there are Palestinians that are on Israel’s side but are beineg turned away by Israel’s attacks. That is nonsense. No Palestinians support Israel. That population was radicalized when they lost their country sixty years ago. Israel isn’t losing supporters by responding to Hamas’s attacks.

Calling for a ceasefire is idiotic. Hamas won’t negotiate with Israel. There’s zero hope of reaching a peaceful settlement with them. Why push for yet another ceasefire? It will either be broken or simply expire and violence will return either way. Accepting a ceasefire only leaves an opponent, who refuses to negotiate, in power. Hamas will continue to make their rocket attacks and Israel will just have to repeat this same situation again in the future. Israel should reoccupy Gaza and obliterate Hamas. An occupation will be bloody, but at least Israel will protect itself from those rocket attacks.