Responsible Capitalism II

                                    Partial Solar Eclipse      Arizona

All governments do make work projects.  In ancient times, the use of surpluses created more population, which then must be employed creating, building, inventing, philosophizing....  What are our current make work projects?  I view a good make work project as one that has a chance to create something new, like the USA government funded research into computer technology after World War II, which with the help of world scientists has developed into our electronic communications and data storage and manipulation systems.  Wow!  What a return! 

Our government has built dams, bridges and highways, that benefitted agriculture and the growth of cities, a real boon for people and was money well spent that generated tax income and provided a living for people.  This was money well spent in the past but much of this infrastructure needs to be maintained, rather than expanded.  We need new make work projects. 

I see now that money could be used for military purposes in outer space.  We need a world militia out there, not a continuation of the hassling on Earth.  Why can't the world's military organizations contribute manpower and money to create an early warning system for asteroids and other dangers out there?  This early warning service cannot be religiousized or politicized or controlled by any other desire excepting that of to save the planet from another cataclysmic hit.  WE NEED TO COOPERATE.   

We need a world militia in outer space.  We need to establish world military outposts in orbit around Earth and on the Moon and on Mars.  Perhaps sensors could be located in orbit around Venus and in strategic places around the sun.  We are more naive than Aztecs waving hi to Cortez as he landed.  We need to protect ourselves. 

Maybe a lack of cooperation among groups will force a stronger economy to shoulder the burden of creating an early warning system, but a lack of total world cooperation will create problems for this project.  Sectarianism could cause failure of an important survival oriented initiative.  Can we quit fighting long enough to save our world?   

To counteract abuses of tax money spending, it is necessary to make sure that the voters retain the right to OK any debt incurrence, which would outlaw 'certificates of participation' that are nothing less than debt.  Gradually, the right of the voters to retain control over government indebtedness has been leached away here in Arizona, where debt remains supreme.  I think more debt has to meet some stringent criteria that would include solvency as number one.  Voting to 'raise the debt limit' on a Federal level is disgusting and a violation of the constitution.  The purpose of legislation is not to skip ahead of the law in a quasi legal runup of debt.  If the voter loses control of government debt, tyranny follows.   

Here in Arizona we have gigantic storm drains in a tiny town that has rain maybe every five years if at all.  The government sponsored union contract cost taxpayers $35 million on a dead end project that is not functional and that generates no income, but did give union construction jobs for a few months.  We cannot afford this kind of spending.  Here in Tucson, city politicians orchestrated the squandering of $230 million in tax money on expensive trips, architectural plans that were never built, and extended site preparation where nothing stands today.  This $230 million was supposed to fund projects that would attract people to the old town area.  Instead, a few self appointed elites skimmed off the money and now are raising parking rates downtown to raise more money. 

This is irresponsible government and certainly irresponsible capitalism, where the government forces taxes from the citizens and then squanders the money instead of returning it to the people in civic improvements.  It doesn't amuse me that big shots took free trips to Italy on taxpayer expense.  Now it's time to move on, they say.  Just forget we stole and got away with $230 million for them and their friends.  This is irresponsible because it causes a distrust of government and wastes precious resources.

To avoid decadence, we must maintain the infrastructure.  Tearing out good infrastructure to put in new is a waste of resources and that union tactic must be avoided.  Something that is hopelessly obsolete must be replaced.  Building more roads is counterproductive when you have enough.  It's time for the USA to recognize the limits to roadbuilding, as the Europeans have ages ago.   

As a nation and as a world we need to quit squandering our resources and focus on what is important.  On 31 May 2013 at 3pm where I live, a massive asteroid with a moon orbiting it passed by the Earth about 15 million kilometers away.  Today 1 June 2013 we are in the midst of a shockwave described on spaceweather.com

 "A G2-class (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm is in progress following the arrival of an interplanetary shock wave on May 31st. The source of the shock is not known; it might have been a minor CME that left the sun without drawing attention to itself."   

I've been following this asteroid which was first described as much smaller and on 30 May 2013 it was discovered to be twice as large and also had a 600 meter moon orbiting it.  This tells me that our detection systems are primitive and that research and development must be deployed to improve our detection systems.  We NEED to set up a defense system to prevent something like that asteroid from hitting the Earth again.  I think this asteroid set off that shock wave and the geomagnetic storm in progress.  It's obviously a traveling magnet.

 

We know so little.  We are like mice crossing the Interstate Highway and we don't even know how to watch for vehicles.   

  

 

IRS Abuse of Power and Obama Care

A truly chilling thought that the IRS is being used as a political tool, designed to harass and tax opponents.  Using taxes to harass those who disagree with you is reprehensible and shows a disregard for civil rights and being treated fairly in the marketplace by the government.  Search words are nice but politically slanted searches for potential targets for investigation or stalling of tax exempt status is social dynamite that undermines the government. I see stratification forming, based on control of tax decisions.  I never voted for any of these people who are taking so much power. 

Abuse of power by the IRS does not inspire confidence in the implementation of Obamacare and guarantees favoritism in 'exemptions' and other perks.  I think that using the IRS to 'collect' Obama care financial requirements is going to throw every incumbent who voted for it out of office.  It's ridiculous and un-American  to give an organization like the IRS power over the citizenry.  Head of the IRS is not even an elective office and they have the power to tax.  It's disgusting that the 'lawmakers' are exempt from the 'mandatory' Obamacare enrollment.  Why are they better than the rest of us?  We are developing a nasty little oligarchy based on the power to tax, voting themselves perks, benefits and exemptions from payments required of the people.  This looks like the destruction of my world as these greedy for money and power vote themselves higher than everybody else, thinking that the position will inspire respect instead of contempt.      

Now AG Holder feels justified in wiretapping the press in order to find a 'leak' that was actually internal.  Apparently he was after who received the information rather than who actually leaked it, which would have been an internal search of his own buddies.  So who is singing internally?  What was this 'secret' information?  AG Holder is acting like we would all be smithereens if he hadn't wiretapped the press.  And he actually expects people to believe him, even after Fast and Furious.   

Remember the ATF Fast and Furious gun scam providing cartels with high powered weapons against federal laws and the laws of the state of Arizona?  AG Holder protected those eventually labeled semi complicit in setting up Fast and Furious and did nothing until Mr. Issa issued a Contempt of Congress citation.  The Fast and Furious gunrunning resulted in the deaths of many, including a border patrol agent who was ambushed with one of the weapons.  Doesn't do much to inspire confidence. 

Now Mayor Bloomberg is allegedly using wall street terminals to snoop on clients and anybody else who uses the service, including the White House. This was evidently lucrative data sifting based on thought to be private data.  Possibly each data mine should share in the profits generated by the data.  Did they break privacy laws?  How did they get the data?  A hacker program?  Did Bloomberg get rich doing this?  I know that sweeping it under the rug is becoming cumbersome, since that rug has become a mountain of hypocrisy, elitism and vicious control by any means of the populace in all aspects of their lives.  Bloomberg does not respect privacy rights or any of the Bill of Rights.   

Like the Second Amendment rights Bloomberg wants to trample on.  I wonder what he thought about the 75,000 people who showed up for the NRA convention in Texas?  Was a representative of the government there taking names for potential IRS targets?  The hue and cry to destroy second amendment rights does not inspire confidence in the government, particularly in the throes of another scandal concerning abuse of government power.  We don't need more restrictions on firearms.  We need a government who is part of the law, not above it.  The lawless Boston bombers proved one thing about firearms.   I bet those people in Boston who had firearms felt more secure than the helpless hunkering in their houses.

The Bill of Rights was needed in order to ratify the Constitution because all agreed that our rights should be defined, in order to protect and guarantee our rights.  A lawless government based on raw power is not my government.  I saw vote out every politician who does not vote to halt Obamacare until the ramifications of the system are understood and the exemptions from it are nil.  Perhaps the lawmakers will bother to read the bill if it is actually applied to themselves.     

    

BOMBS ARE ALREADY ILLEGAL

Bombs are already illegal but terrorists don't care about that, much like the criminals who have guns will scoff at gun control attempts and take advantage of disarmed people and 'peaceful events'.  Imagine a homeowner defending himself against an AK or a bomb thrower with a cylinder handgun or a shotgun?  We live in a dangerous world and we need weapons to defend ourselves.   

So the gun control debate rages on, with ordinary people the target of restrictions on firearm possession and ammunition access at a time when the world is becoming more dangerous. 

The mental health aspect is being discussed, but in a peripheral manner.  In several cases, schools had data that would indicate that the shooter was deranged in some dangerous way, but this information was withheld.  Do privacy laws still hold when the information being concealed could lead to dangerous crimes?  Schools hold much information about students, but where to draw the line?  Should law enforcement notification and edification be required for expulsions from schools? 

I would like to see published the drug histories of the shooters, including blood tests.  Is there a common link or links to prescription drug use or illegal drug use? I read about a huge meth bust in Connecticut and that makes me wonder if the shooter had been using.  Why should I give up my gun rights because some drugged out mental case becomes murderous?  Why is this drug information being kept secret?

Another aspect of the gun control debate that is mostly ignored is the role and involvement of the legal system:  prosecution, sentencing and parole.  Lawyers are currently milking the system and the judges are allowing the delay and extension of cases that could be handled more expeditiously, while lawyers skim the cream off greatly extended cases.  Just say no might be a good idea for the judges who grant all that.  I think that punishments should be more direct and clear cut:  a crime using a gun is automatic x years imprisonment.  If the gun was fired, then x years more.  If somebody was killed or wounded, automatic execution.  No pleas of insanity:  you did that you get x.   No more living a lifetime on death row.  Remember McVeigh?  

Part of the problem is a lack of follow through after criminals are apprehended.  New York City has an excellent follow through rate, while Chicago does not and is now suffering violence.  Not to mention the open door policy, gangs and all the mayhem moving north.  Evidently taking away gun rights did not contain violent crime, but following up on punishments for crimes with guns is effective.  So they want to dilute my gun rights because they are not following up on punishments for violent crime?  No justice there.

It's interesting how many of the wealthy are for gun control, personified by Mayor Bloomberg.  The one percenters are not happy with just most of the wealth:  they want the masses to be relieved of their firearms as well.  It has been pointed out that none of the new legislation would have prevented those past tragedies.  Why not deal with the reality of what is provoking violence in our society?  What about bombs?   What is provoking violence?  One poor schmo went crazy because his home was foreclosed on and his utilities turned off.  He's dead now so he won't be telling his desperate story.  Why is flunking out of graduate school such a personal tragedy that somebody else needed to suffer?  What values are our young being taught?  School pressure is implicated in violence.  Is there a movement on to study school pressure as related to student debt?  Moneylenders who profited take heed!  The social results of some money making tactics are not worth the ultimate cost.  Schools will ultimately lose prestige over this debacle because they no longer provide a way to learn to earn a living and idealism does not pay debt.   I read that student debt is 30% in default and over 60% of college graduates are underemployed and most of the rest don't have a job.  If the wealthy have their way, they won't have a firearm either.      

Other recent murderers' families are being protected from scrutiny, which also avoids a public study of disfunctionality within the families of the shooters.  Other questions need to be answered, like were they on drugs and if so, then what were they on?  Why did the schools conceal information about the shooters?  Did local law enforcement conceal information about the shooters?  What is the track record of the prosecutor, judge and parole system as far as follow up on violent offenders?  Do the punishments fit the crimes on the books, or are the jails packed with minor offenders while the violent get lighter sentences or early release due to overcrowding?  In New York state, they let a murderer out of jail and he killed three more people.  Why was he let out?  In Texas, a killer gets out four years early and kills the chief warden in Colorado.  A clerical error!   Limiting possession of guns isn't going to address these questions and nor would it have prevented them.  Should a recent stabbing spree result in banning knives?  Banning the instrument of death will not fix the social problems exemplified by the senseless slayings.  Other means of death will be found. Look what happened in Boston.   

I feel for the grieving families that are allowing themselves to be trotted out by the politicians as a reason for gun control, believing they are in the right by wanting to curb gun rights in the aftermath of the mother who enabled the madman Lanza.  Mark Kelly is using Gabby Giffords as his poster woman for gun control and she truly is a courageous figure, but Laughner was a known mental case and had been expelled probably for threatening other students.  Why wasn't that reported?  Or was it reported and forgotten about?  Somebody didn't follow procedure.  Throughout history, there have been madmen and the larger the population, the more of them there are at any given time.  These are the people who should be identified and prevented from owning a gun, not the gigantic majority of normal people.  I deplore the politicians who use human distress for political purposes.     

The removal of effective weapon's rights from the possession of the common man has not been a harbinger of joy in the history of our known world.  We know our history and that will not happen here. 

 

  

   

Gun Violence in the USA

                                 Tucson Rodeo Parade

Gun Violence

Recent crimes have been committed by parolees, dangerous criminals who have been let out of jail 'rehabilitated'.  One of these dangerous criminals murdered his sister who took him in and then killed two firemen who showed up to fight the fire he set.  Who in New York let this vicious criminal out of jail so he could murder again?  Why doesn't the press discuss this? 

A later crime committed by a parolee was in Colorado, where the highest corrections officer was slain at his front door.  This same guy is suspected in another murder of an attorney general.  Why was this vicious murderer let out of jail? 

The liberals call for more gun laws while they campaign to let 'rehabilitated' vicious criminals out of jail.  Laughner is now serving a life term paid for with tax money and local politicians are using the actions of Laughner to attempt to control firearm ownership.  Why not try Laughner under the laws of the state of Arizona, which prohibit killing people?  I think the punishment for murdering with a gun should be an automatic immediate death sentence.  Laughner should have been hung at sunrise on the next day after the shootings, with no doubt as to his guilt. 

Now this new punk in Aurora wants life in prison.  So he flunked out of graduate school?  That's no reason to kill strangers.  This icky little punk just wants to be locked up and taken care of the whole rest of his life, while the rest of us pay.  I saw on the news that his ploy failed.  He obviously did it, so let's try his worthless ass! 

The point here is that lax prosecution, easy sentencing and even easier paroling have led to a scofflaw mentality.  Killers get out to kill again.  Supplying guns to criminals is punishable in Arizona.  So were the ATF officials prosecuted?  They were seeing to it that known criminal organizations received firearms, even arranging money laundering to pay for it, but nobody was prosecuted.  We don't need more laws:  We need the current laws to be enforced by ALL aspects of the system, not just the personnel out there in the field trying to intercept criminals and monitor domestic violence on frozen pay scales.  I've heard more than one law enforcement express frustration at the disposition of the criminals they apprehend.  And remember, the ATF did not keep local law enforcement informed of their gun purchase scheme that resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Terry.  Criminals having more and better arms obviously caught the patrol by surprise.  The punishment for all of these crimes?  A few people in the ATF were transferred, a few were fired and Holder reluctantly accepted the resignation of one scapegoat when Darrel Issa filed contempt of Congress proceedings against Holder.

Now after saturating Arizona with illegal guns, the liberals are using grieving families to push their agenda of gun control on the rest of us, howling that there is no reason not to go ahead with restrictions on gun ownership because morons and lunatics kill people.  It's obvious that mental defectives should not have access to guns.  Laughner was expelled from junior college, and the college suggested a mental health workup, which was never done.  Possibly law enforcement should have been brought in by the college, since such an extreme measure was taken.  Perhaps the mental health evaluation should have been ordered by a judge and a report made to the firearm prohibition list until a determination could be made.  Hindsight is always best but now is the time to get some procedures in place that bring the schools into the loop.  The same goes for the Colorado killer.

What about the foolish mother in Connecticut who taught her autistic son to shoot and paid for it with her life and the lives of more innocents?  She suffered severe lapses in judgment by supplying firearms and allowing her son to sit around the house at age 20.  He should have been in a program for years and he should never have had access to firearms.  However, I don't think my gun rights should be limited because of this sick mother and son relationship.  It's disgusting to see the victims' families emotionally used for longstanding political ends.  Lanza was a vicious criminal and the gun control measures the liberals want would not have changed his access to a gun.

It's interesting to note that Mark Kelly is campaigning to limit gun ownership but that he thinks it's OK to bring a vicious pit bull that slaughtered a sea lion pup to the beach.    Maybe people need guns to defend themselves, Mark.  I'm glad the dog didn't attack a child.

The liberals never discuss lax follow up on enforcement and are quick to blame general gun ownership for violence.  Crimes with guns need to be prosecuted and punished with death or life in prison.  If we don't have enough prison space, let all the pot heads out and fill up the spaces with criminals who committed crimes with guns.  That would cut gun violence like nothing else.   And no additional legislation on gun rights would be required.    

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