Because there is so much truth to it.  :o

Finally.  It is happening.  America is getting pissed.

Thank you!

I have grown excessively apathetic over the last year or so, with so many things happening politically that where going the wrong way.  At least IMHO of course.  Everything from the Patriot Act to Health Care, to Health Insurance, to Public Schools and Taxation.  The more I study politics, history, and economics the more pissed off I am and the more apathetic I need to be sometimes.

The town halls of the recent past and the attempts at further democratization of our Republic’s processes, even amid all the propaganda and lies has been encouraging.  The current Democrats (not to exclude the Republicans) grossly underestimated the pissed off and frustrated parts of America.  I honestly dread the politicians keep underestimating how frustrated, angry, and perturbed the people of this nation are becoming.  The politicians get lost in their little world, elusive of reality that the blue and white collar workers face, the immigrant and the native, and the dwindling white man and growing Mexican Worker presence.  The politicians often have no idea any longer of the elusive race relations among people, obfuscated in multiple layers of social engineering.  They have no idea of the underpinnings of the armed militias that continue, the armed defenders of Americans, the frustrated social Democrats that want more freedoms for people, only to abrogate rights just as Republicans have over the last Presidency.  The hypocrites the lot of them (except maybe Ron Paul, he still holds true to what he says, unlike about every other soul – I must admit, at least Obama holds fairly true to his flexibility of virtue).

All in all, it is safe to say, politicians are further out of touch than they ever have been in US history, all the while being more connected than ever.  It is a strange juxtaposition of our modern world.

But I’ve been emboldened to know that Americans can still get pissed off, can still raise their fists in anger and frustration at our leaders ineptitude and make them back down off of their deluded ideals of how we should live our lives?  It seemed under Bush Republicans, and some Democrats alike had just grown horrifically apathetic.  Somewhat easy to understand, being how roughshod Bush drove over our rights and many of our core ideals with his own.  We Americans, rightfully apathetic, felt scarred and bloodied from the incessant refusal to listen to the population.

Give me freedom to live and to strive for a good life and I’ll lead myself and others by example to deeds worthy of liberty and freedom.  Take these away from me and I shall be one of the greatest drains upon the sweltering insipid, mindless society that will come of it.  Thank you America.  Thank you stupid people.  Thank you smart people.  Thank you black person, white person, Mexican or Jew.  Thank you for standing up and screaming the politicians back into their position as servant and not our master.

Thank You.

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."  ~Thomas Jefferson

Firearm truisms:

• An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
• A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
• Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
• Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
• If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
• Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
• 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
• Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
• 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
• Assault is a behavior, not a device.
• Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
• You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.
• When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

Cuba is a prime example of a completely isolated system, based entirely on Socialism.  Every socialist system that exists today often has heavy trade with less socialist or even more socialist systems, helping to perpetuate and distort the reality of those systems.

Cuba however just cut funding for health care and education.  So it makes me wonder, what country on this planet, could exist isolated as a socialist entity?  Maybe China or maybe Russia, but that is about it.

At least Cuba, unlike most developed nations (not saying Cuba is) has the bravery to cut those welfare programs.  Meanwhile the rest of the world plungers further into currency devaluation and bankruptcy.

Maybe, after all we could learn a thing or two from those commie bastards in Cuba?

Best news I've seen from anywhere in the court system in many months.

Now, the next thing they can start doing is striking down parts of the President's over extended powers and banning insidious bail outs.

...one can dream of some honesty in the system right?  Just a little?  An itsy teeny bit.   

I often wonder where the bravery and spirit of state's, and especially individuals' stand in regard to their actual rights.  It seems, that I'm not the only one who would like to see a re-enabling of our rights as states and individuals and a removal of the Federal Government's jack boot on backs.  The feds have done everything from remove opportunities to build out infrastructure at state cost, expand passenger rail service, encourage higher standard for automobile exhaust, and more.

Yeah, that's right, the Federal Government.

While reading this article I stumbled into some events I did not know of and found it almost shocking in a refreshing sense.  In the article Walter E. Williams writers, "Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

There’s speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania."

Really?

Seriously?

Americans are growing a set again and stepping up to bat for their rights?!  It can't be!  I'm impressed.  As one state proudly proclaims in its motto, "Life free or die!", New Hampshire is staying true to its motto and constitution as was written long ago in that state, "That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General (federal) Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."

These types of acts, we need, desperately in this country now.  Especially in this time of weakness we need to protect and to act out in our best interests state by state, individual by individual to prevent further encroachment.

The Federal Government through blackmail, mostly by threatening to remove highway funds, has held states by the noose for so long many can't remember when states actually had access to and notions of independence.  Then of course, there is barely an individual alive today that can clearly remember liberty of the scale and expanse of the past.  In a mere decade or two, there definitely won't be a soul left.  We need to take it back so that we can have a new generation know and live in true liberty.

Of course, I am pessimistic yet hopeful.  Maybe we can regain ourselves and our choices for ourselves again.

Maybe.

Imagine tomorrow, just work with me on this one, imagine that every person smoking pot, doing cocaine, or some other variant of illegal drug usage was arrested.

Imagine ALL of those people.  Can you imagine them all?  How many people really have any idea how many people that would be?  The real estimation of how many people are caught and arrested in relation to illegal drug distribution and use is maybe 5-15%.  That estimation is really only among the lower income.  So what about everyone else?

Imagine 5-10%+ of the software industry employees are all of a sudden in jail.  Imagine tomorrow that hundreds of medical professionals are in jail.  Imagine hundreds and hundreds of doctors in jail for illegal prescriptions.  Imagine the thousands upon thousands of truckers, taxi drivers, and other professionals that would be thrown in jail because of off hours recreational use.  Imagine the service sector losing hundreds of thousands of employees that serve, prepare, deliver, and make the food that millions of Americans eat.  Imagine the stock market losing 50-80% of the traders (some estimates are even higher).  Imagine the number of police officers pulled off the street or firemen pull away and tossed in jail.

Imagine the well over trillions of dollars these people contribute to the economy gone, shoved into jail?

Yeah, keep saying to yourself that these people don’t do some type of illegal drug.  Keep telling yourself they don’t smoke pot or pop some pills to stay alert.  Just keep lying to yourself like that.  Keep imagining that these people aren’t really there or they aren’t that important.

Now imagine, all of those people, doing all of those jobs, critical or not are lost.  This current financial collapse, the great depression, all of it would pale in comparison.  Our entire society would come to a screeching halt within 24-48 hours, you can bet your ass on it.

So why do we perpetuate the idea we should arrest non-violent recreational users?  Why are these recreational uses not ok but alcohol, smoking, and other bad for you activities are ok now?  The laws need reviewed, and all those people that turn away and ignore this abhorrent ongoing action by the Government to enforce something that is impossible to do in the first place, desperately need to think.

In the past 30 years we’ve spent enough on the drug wars to do ALL of the following.

• The money spent on the drug war could have provided high speed rail of 200mph+ to every major city pair in the US; Seattle to Portland, San Francisco to Sacramento, LA to San Diego, Houston to Dallas, New Orleans to Mobile, Jacksonville to Tampa, Tampa to Miami, and dozens more.
• Every city could have expanded services to deal with drug issues for over 10 million people.
• We could have developed and supplied the needed electrical infrastructure for GMs electric car, in the mid-90s.  GM thus, most likely wouldn’t be hurting like they are and America would again be leading the world in something, instead of falling behind like it is now.
• Thousands of South Americans, US Citizens, Officers and others, would most likely still be alive.
• The increase in taxable product would be in the positive billions for the Government, and the industry could possibly employ over a hundred thousand Americans.  The drug lords of today would immediately lose power with the veil of illegality removed.
• The safety of these drugs could easily be monitored and increased, so that they do not cause the intense and drastic dangers that some of the heavier drugs cause.
• Freedom and choice of individual citizens is restored.  A choice that has been removed now for about 30-60 years.  A choice that hundreds of millions of Americans had not thought twice about until the last 30-60 years ago.

…and there would probably still be a couple dozen billion dollars left over still.  Maybe it could pay for our ever encroaching bailouts of today.

So maybe, someone should think a bit more about our dire and draconian drug laws.

SOCIALISM 
You have 2 cows. 
You give one to your neighbour. 

COMMUNISM 
You have 2 cows. 
The State takes both and gives you some milk. 

FASCISM 
You have 2 cows. 
The State takes both and sells you some milk. 

NAZISM 
You have 2 cows. 
The State takes both and shoots you. 

BUREAUCRATISM 
You have 2 cows. 
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away... 

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM 
You have two cows. 
You sell one and buy a bull. 
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. 
You sell them and retire on the income. 

SURREALISM 
You have two giraffes. 
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons 

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. 
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead. 

A FRENCH CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows. 

A JAPANESE CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide. 

A GERMAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves. 

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. 
You decide to have lunch. 

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You count them and learn you have five cows. 
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. 
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. 
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka. 

A SWISS CORPORATION 
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. 
You charge the owners for storing them. 

A CHINESE CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You have 300 people milking them. 
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. 
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation. 

AN INDIAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
You worship them. 

A BRITISH CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
Both are mad. 

AN IRAQI CORPORATION 
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. 
You tell them that you have none. 
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country. 
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy.... 

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
Business seems pretty good. 
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate. 

A CANADIAN CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
They tell you that milk is now the official language and religion of the country. You say, sure no problem. 

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION 
You have two cows. 
The one on the left looks very attractive .

...yup, that pretty much sums it up. 

The election ended and the crowds in bars and taverns where filled with joyous customers.  Imbibing drink after drink and speaking merrily of the salvation from the previous party.  The new President, according to the merry makers would bring new jobs, reconstruction, reestablishment of known freedoms, and bring home the troops.

The crowds spoke of how the labor would be saved by the tumultuous competition that was unfair to them.  In other moments they spoke of how unfair and stupid the previous administration was for making the trade deals they had made.

As the election ended and the economy plunged into darker territory, fear gripped the nation, but the new President would have many solutions.  He’d save us from our own mistakes by applying what the previous President had done to create the mistakes.  Many where sure of this, and they where ready to put their money down – or more realistically to trigger those credit cards again for some purchases!  For no doubt, the Federal Reserve would fix things by printing more money or making money cheap and easy.  Somehow, someway, some miracle would bring us through!

The days before the inauguration brought tears to the eyes of many women, who now felt empowered to go about their business.  They thought, finally, “we won’t have to listen to the other side and their sexist demeaning ramblings”.  These ladies thought, “we’ll stand on our own in the world of business now with this new leader”.  In fact they would.

Men stood by solemnly, wanting to move further ahead in business.  Many men wanted to provide for their families, some wanting tradition, some just wanting to know that they could find a job.  The new President gave them hope, not particularly because they where prepared, but because the previous President was a let down.

Millions however, still stood apathetic in the face of the media blitz.

These stories tell of what I saw, at the end of an election cycle at the end of a two term President.

Deja Vu

The strange thing is, this has happened to me twice.  Once just recently, with the inauguration set.  The irrational joys bring fear to me as I know how things pan out afterwards, at least according to past Presidents taking the throne of power.  The other however, was 8 years ago when George W. Bush took office.  Revered in the red counties as one who would give the farmers an ability to stand up again.  Someone who would bring the troops home.  Either way, one sees the same emotional responses, you just have to be in the right place.

The only real question though, that is left, is will Obama be different?  I’d garner that the real question is how different will he be?  Will this scenario get replayed again in 8 years?  One thing is for sure, I’m up for something, I wouldn’t call it change, but Obama seems to at least spurring something.  Let’s hope it doesn’t become irrational exuberance, and hopefully America will get a little sober in it’s drunken binges of easy money.

We shall see.

Are you kidding me, why would someone even proposing that this would NOT keep the stocks down.  Of course the threat of reregulation is keeping the stocks donw.  The threat of a complete loss of profits, loss of revenue to expand the systems and increase revenue?

Well, Railway Age asked the question, "Is re-reg driving down rail stocks down?".

Sometimes, I'm baffled by the complete disregard of logic, reason, common sense, and the awe inspiring power of stupidity.