“CrAzY!! … She’s really a psycho!!! Do not say her name too loud, never mention her meds by names & try to talk to her when …”

While this is certainly insulting, why is it that her reaction is to sue Walgreens?? You just know she will be suing for at least a couple of million, does she really feel that she is entitled to this kind of money because she suffered a few minutes of embarrassment?

If this happened to me, I’m sure I would be angry and probably even a little embarrassed about it. It’s possible that I would never shop at Walgreens again. Perhaps I would even send a letter to their corporate headquarters. Never, never would I consider a lawsuit.

So what’s wrong with people? Why do we hear about people suing corporations for millions of dollars, over such silly things? Well, I can’t be sure, but maybe it has something to do with this entitlement society that our government has created.

Many, maybe even most, people in this country believe that it is fundamentally right to take money from one group of people, and give it to another group in the form of welfare, prescription drugs, health insurance, college tuition, emergency relief, foreign aid or any one of the hundreds of other programs that promote the redistribution of wealth. If they already believe that some are just entitled to other people’s money, would they not be more likely to look for situations that would entitle them to their “fair share”?

I could be wrong here, but if our society were more about personal responsibility and less about the government trying to solve every problem, I bet we would have less of these crazy lawsuits.

At the same time I am overcome with sadness at this news, I am extremely grateful for everything he has given me over the years. It was a joy to read his articles and hear his speeches and shows. I learned so much from him and I know that I am not alone. He will be missed.

The specific FairTax proposal has been around for some time, and has a large number of supporters. Basically, the FairTax would eliminate all federal income taxes and payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes, and replace them with a 23% tax on all new goods and services. To combat the argument that a consumption tax hurts the poor, the FairTax also has the government sending a monthly “prebate” check to all US heads of household. This “prebate” would essentially allow consumers to buy all of life’s necessities tax free. This amount of this check would be based on the number of people in the household, and seems like it would average out to around $600.

The book does a great job of pointing out problems with the current system and the benefits of the FairTax. I don’t believe that it went far enough to explain issues and problems that critics are sure to point out. The authors repeatedly stress that we are currently paying an average 22% “embedded tax” on all goods and services that will disappear after the FairTax is enacted. I would have liked a better explanation for how the 22% was determined, and why the FairTax wouldn’t cause some level of “embedded tax”. Also, some explanation of how the authors envision the transition occurring would have been nice.

Many libertarians have fallen in love with the idea of a consumption tax. In theory anyway, it’s not hard to see why. A consumption tax would be voluntary, so if rates were too high consumers would stop buying. Everyone would pay the same rate, so the wealthy would no longer be burdened with a disproportionate amount of tax. It would be the end of “withholding”, so people would be aware of exactly how much they are paying in taxes, and the IRS would be eliminated, making April 15th just another day.

I am in agreement that a consumption tax is far superior to the system that we have now. However — and maybe I shouldn’t be so pessimistic — I am skeptical. My worst fear is that we will end up with both an income tax and a consumption tax. Because of this fear, it would be difficult for me to support a consumption tax that did not include a repeal of the 16th amendment. If politicians can’t get enough from a consumption tax to cover their spending, tacking the income tax back on should not be an option.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the book. I’d recommend that you save $20 and just read the web site.

On this holiday, however, I would like to offer my thanks to the people that continue to make this country great: the Capitalists. I am thankful for all the business owners and investors out there who have the courage to put their time and money at risk in the hopes of turning a profit. The side effect of this army of people competing for our dollars is limitless convenience and a quality of life that is unimaginable in much of the world.

Of course, we are so accustomed to this lifestyle brought about by the free market that we take it for granted. The only time these individuals seem to get any attention at all is when it is negative, but where would we be if not for them? They are often times dismissed as greedy and selfish, but can you imagine life without them?

Take a look at this article by Jonathan Hoenig of CapitalistPig.com. I first read it a few years ago but came across it again today. He recognizes capitalists as heroes and points out a few ways that our lives are better because of them.

In principal anyway, I do not have a problem with capital punishment. If you have taken a life, being killed is only fair. In practice, however, government is no better at administering the death penalty than responding to hurricanes or stopping terrorists.

This case illustrates that our system is far from perfect, and killing an innocent person is simply inexcusable. When you’re dealing with someone’s life there should be no margin of error.

The federal government has an entire agency devoted to responding to national emergencies. This agency is called the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and apparently it receives over $6 billion per year of our tax dollars. Six billion dollars a year. Six billion dollars a year to manage emergencies, and people are dying for 5 days before this emergency showed any signs of management.

The FEMA response to Katrina is getting absolutely slammed by the media, victims of the hurricane, and average citizens — and rightfully so. I am thrilled to see people finally demanding some accountability from their government, it is just unfortunate that it required such a disaster to make it happen.

I only hope that this outrage brings about the right type of change. It would be sad if the result is a 3 year study on “what went wrong” — followed by a tripling of FEMA’s funding. I truly believe that the “red tape” created by the current level of funding helped lead to the situation we are in today.

In order to successfully respond and manage emergency situations, it seems imperative that an organization be small, fast, able to respond quickly, with management and personnel empowered to make instant decisions. This can not happen in a six billion dollar bureaucracy, and hurricane Katrina was proof.

Is it even possible for our 2.5 trillion dollar government to create an agency that is capable of properly responding to such emergencies? With the government as it is today, I can’t see how. This federal government seems to fail and disappoint us in virtually everything that it undertakes. Are we sure that we want to trust these bureaucrats with such an important task as this?

Most people, even quite a few Libertarians, would argue that responding and managing natural disasters is exactly the type of thing the federal government should be doing. I will not argue with those who believe that. But can’t we agree that the entire government should be smaller, so that politicians can focus more on things like this that are truly important?

When is the last time the Senate conducted hearings on our disaster relief strategies? If Senators had been questioning the heads of FEMA instead of asking baseball players about steroids, could we have been more responsive? Could lives have been saved?

If Congressmen had been asking disaster readiness questions instead of adding pork to the recently passed $286 billion highway bill, could we have been more prepared? Could lives have been saved?

Our federal government is growing uncontrollably, expanding into areas it has no business. This seemingly endless expansion makes it even less efficient, taking focus away from the important things. How many lives could have been saved if the focus was where it belonged? Now is the time to stand up and hold these politicians accountable.

This bill is unconstitutional and has absolutely nothing to do with “Free Trade”, in fact it is just the opposite. It is a classic example of doublespeak to call it “free trade” when it is actually hundreds of pages of trade regulations.

I’m not going to go into much more detail on this one, but I do suggest you read Ron Paul’s article on CAFTA. As always, he does a great job of describing how this bill threatens our liberty, and in this case our nation’s sovereignty.

In a classic case of doublespeak, Representative Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) said:

“The Patriot Act has proven itself over the past three and a half years as an invaluable tool against terrorists while remaining true to our strong civil liberty protections.”

Funny. Has the Patriot Act helped at all in capturing terrorists? From what I can find, there have only been 39 terrorism related arrests due to the Patriot Act, and most of those were for crimes such as passport violations, fraud, false statements, and conspiracy.

Can you believe the nerve of this guy to actually imply that this legislation offers civil liberty protections?? Maybe someone should tell him that the Patriot Act actually allows law enforcement to demand the production of financial records, credit reports, telephone, internet, and other communications or transactional records — all without a true warrant.

The good news is that, so far, it looks like the Senate is headed towards a much better version of the bill. This version actually requires that you be notified within 7 days if you were subject to a secret search, and tightens some other requirements. Let’s hope the final bill is closer to the Senate version.

On July 14th, in a speech on the floor of the House, Ron Paul cited research from the book Dying to Win by Robert Pape. Pape’s exhaustive research shows that our intervention in the Middle East leads to these attacks. Here’s a great quote from Paul’s speech:

The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire “to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland.”

The best news is that if stopping suicide terrorism is a goal we seek, a solution is available to us. Cease the occupation of foreign lands and the suicide missions will cease. Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the U.S., the French, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks. The reason the attacks stop, according to Pape, is that the Osama bin Ladens of the world no longer can inspire potential suicide terrorists despite their continued fanatical religious beliefs.

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, provides another example. He recently said that intervention in the Middle East by Western nations, motivated by oil, along with oppression has caused spawned suicide attacks. Here’s a quote:

“I think we have just had 80 years of Western intervention in predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil.”

“We have propped up unsavoury governments, we have overthrown ones that we didn’t consider sympathetic.”

“And I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs and sent him off to kill the Russians in Afghanistan and they didn’t give any thought to the fact that once he had done that, he might turn on his creators.”

The London attacks were truly a tragic event. I am amazed to see someone as close to those events as the mayor of London mentioning that Britain may have actually had a hand in causing them. I can’t imagine that the public want’s to hear that right now, so it seems pretty courageous for Mr. Livingstone to come out and say it.

Can you imagine if Rudolph Giuliani had said something like this after 9/11?

I am a big history buff, and am especially interested in the founding fathers and the revolutionary period, so I was very excited about this book. McCullough must have done an extraordinary amount of research to put together the details that he presents here. The story is presented very well, is an excellent read, and kept me entertained.

1776 covers all of the battles and skirmishes of these first years of the war. Everyone is probably familiar with Bunker Hill and Trenton, but the information provided on the lesser known aspects of the war, such as the siege of Dorchester Heights, helps put Washington’s strategy and the troop’s moral in perspective.

Also intriguing is the attention given to the British perspective. We get to read excerpts of King George III’s speech to parliament declaring the colonies in rebellion, along with the opinions of members of parliament who were opposed to the war.

Lots of coverage is given to Washington, and his generals Nathanial Greene and Henry Knox. Along with Washington’s brilliance, we also see several of his mistakes and instances of indecisiveness.

I am sure that anyone who, like me, takes an interest in the Revolution would love 1776. If you’ve read it, leave a comment and let me know what you thought!