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The gun debate continues « Conservative Libertarian Outpost
April 28, 2007Pulp Nonfiction: Why
April 28, 2007Conservative Libertarian Outpost
April 27, 2007Hillary Rodham Clinton
March 26, 2007“Everyone knows Hillary Rodham Clinton, and everyone has a different reaction to her. Some find her as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard. Some find that she makes their skin crawl. Some run screaming from the room. And some want to drink a gallon of rat poison while lying across a railroad track. The conventional wisdom is that the former first lady will be a formidable presidential candidate because she has lots of money, veteran campaign aides, a shrewd political sense and a close connection to a president beloved by Democrats. But those may be nothing next to a couple of fairly major factors operating against her. The first is that many people in both parties see her as ideologically repellent. Conservatives think she’s an arrogant busybody with an addiction to big government. The Left regards her as a cynical trimmer who can’t admit when she’s wrong. The second is that many people, again in both parties, just can’t stand her. You want a uniter, not a divider? Hillary has a way of uniting people who ordinarily would be pelting each other with eggs. That explains the appeal of the new YouTube ad, modeled on Apple’s famous ‘1984’ Super Bowl commercial, which portrays her as a blandly sinister Big Sister on a giant screen, uttering phony platitudes to an army of robotic slaves. It ends happily when a blonde female athlete sprints in and hurls a sledgehammer at the screen, obliterating the image… As the campaign proceeds, some people will be hoping for her to succeed. But I’m betting a lot more will be rooting for the blonde with the sledgehammer.” —Steve Chapman
Via the Patriot Post PatriotPost.US |
Firearm Fatalities At Record Lows
March 10, 2007ITASKA, IL—A newly released report from the National Safety Council shows that accidental firearms-related fatalities remain at record lows, and that firearms-related accidents involving youths continue to decline significantly.The report says these downward trends are occurring even as firearms ownership continues to rise in the United States. Statistics in the NSC’s 2007 “Injury Facts” report show a 40 percent decrease in accidental firearms-related fatalities during a 10-year period ending in 2005. The report also shows firearms-related accidents involving children ages 14 and under declined 69 percent between 1995 and 2003. Downward trends also are being reported by other sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For more information, visit www.nsc.org.
So much for the raving antics of Barrister Silverman (http://www.khow.com/pages/shows-caplis_silverman.html) that appears to be proud of the apparent fact that he would be happy that my mother would have been killed by a knife wielding rapist. My own life would have been sacrificed as well. Me? I thank GOD for Ruger 357 Magnums, Super Vell Ammunition, and the MARINES that taught me how to shoot. Period.
Listen folks; As noted elsewhere on this blog terrorists are among us. They could care less about any laws that we propose, much less enact. They intend to kill you, yes you. As well as your families…
So? What are our so-called leaders proposing? Why, to dis- arm us of course! (as noted also elsewhere on this blog). I submit that the answer to this dilemma, is FREEDOM! LIBERTY! JUSTICE! No more, and certainly no less.
With Freedom comes responsibility. With Liberty comes Accountability. With Justice comes Honor. I submit that Justice is not the realm of Lawyers, but the realm of the common person.
Look folks, we are very close to revolution fever here.
Why? In my opinion, because we, as a people, have decided that the Constitution is some outdated thought process of Old Dead White men. I would postulate that what we, as a people need to do; Is remember the works, deeds, and thoughts that those old white men displayed in the writings that led to the founding of this nation!
Hat tip to Antique Guns Newsletter
February 24, 2007Marine Corps General Reinwald was interviewed on the
>> > radio the other day and you’ll love his reply to the lady who
>> > interviewed him concerning guns and children.
>> >
>> > Regardless of how you feel about gun laws you gotta love
>> > this!!!! This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a
>> > portion of National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female
>> > broadcaster and US Marine Corps General Reinwald who was about to
>> > sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
>> >
>> > FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things
>> > are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?
>> >
>> > GENERAL REINWALD: We’re going to teach them climbing,
>> > canoeing, archery, and shooting.
>> >
>> > FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That’s a bit
>> > irresponsible, isn’t it?
>> >
>> > GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see why, they’ll be properly
>> > supervised on the rifle range.
>> >
>> > FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don’t you admit that this is a
>> > terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?
>> >
>> > GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see how. We will be teaching
>> > them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.
>> >
>> > FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you’re equipping them to become
>> > violent killers.
>> >
>> > GENERAL REINWALD: Well, Ma’am, you’re equipped to be a
>> > prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?
>> >
>> > The radio went silent and the interview ended.
>> >
>> > Oooh RAHWhat were the 1700’s Like
In George Washington‘s days, there were no cameras.
One’s image was
either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George
Washington showed
him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his
back while others
showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by
painters were not based on how many people were to be
painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted.
Arms and legs are “limbs,” therefore painting them
would cost the buyer more. Hence the _expression,
“Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”
===================================================
As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths
only twice a
year (May and October)! Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved their heads (because of lice and
bugs) and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good
wigs made from wool. They couldn’t wash the wigs, so
to clean them they would carve out a loaf of bread,
put the wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes.
The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the
term “big wig.” Today we often use the term “here
comes the Big Wig” because someone appears to be or is
powerful and wealthy.
====================================================
In the late 1700s, many houses consisted of a large
room with only one
chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from
the wall, and was used for dining. The “head of the
household” always sat in the chair while
everyone else ate sitting on the floor Occasionally a
guest, who was
usually a man, would be invited to sit in this chair
during a meal. To
sit in the chair meant you were important and in
charge. They called the
one sitting in the chair the “chair man.” Today in
business, we use the
expression or title “Chairman” or “Chairman of the
Board.”
********************************************************************************
****
Personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a
result, many women and men had developed acne scars by
adulthood. The women would spread bee’s wax over their
facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they
were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare
at another woman’s face she was told, “mind your own
bee’s wax.” Should the woman smile, the wax would
crack, hence the term “crack a smile” In addition,
when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would
melt . . . therefore, the expression “losing face.”
**************************************************************
Ladies wore corsets, which would lace up in the front.
A proper and
dignified woman, as in “straight laced”. . . wore a
tightly tied lace.
**************************************************************
Common entertainment included playing cards. However,
there was a tax
levied when purchasing playing cards but only
applicable to the “Ace of
Spades.” To avoid paying the tax, people would
purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games
require 52 cards, these people were thought to be
stupid or dumb because they weren’t “playing with a
full deck.”
*************************************************************
Early politicians required feedback from the public
to determine what the
people considered important. Since there were no
telephones, TV’s or
radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local
taverns, pubs, and
bars. They were told to “go sip some ale” and listen
to people’s
conversations and political concerns. Many assistants
were dispatched at
different times. “You go sip here” and “You go sip
there.” The two words
“go sip” were eventually combined when referring to
the local opinion and,
thus we have the term “gossip.”
**************************************************************
At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from
pint and quart-sized
containers. A bar maid’s job was to keep an eye on the
customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay
close attention and remember who was drinking in
“pints” and who was drinking in “quarts,” hence the
term “minding your “P’s and Q’s.”
**************************************************************
One more: bet you didn’t know this!
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and
many freighters carried
iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon
balls. It was
necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon.
However, how to prevent them from rolling about the
deck? The best storage method devised was a
square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on
four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a
supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small
area right next to the cannon. There was only one
problem…how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding
or rolling from under the others. The solution was a
metal plate called a “Monkey” with 16 round
indentations.
However, if this plate were made of iron, the iron
balls would quickly
rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to
make “Brass
Monkeys.” Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts
much more and much faster than iron when chilled.
Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far,
the brass indentations would shrink so much that the
iron
cannonballs would come right off the monkey. Thus, it
was quite
literally, “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a
brass monkey.” (All
this time, you thought that was an improper
expression, didn’t you?)
Listen to the Whole Story
Mommy… I was at the playground and I saw Daddy’s car go into the
woods with Aunt Jane. I went back to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a
big
kiss. Then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped
Daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane……..” At this point Mommy
cut
him off and said, “Johnny, this is such an interesting story, suppose
you
save the rest of it for supper time. I want to see the look on Daddy’s
Face when you tell it tonight.”! At the dinner table, Mommy asked
little
Johnny to tell his story. Johnny started his story, “I was at the
playground and I saw Daddy’s car go into the woods with Aunt Jane. I
went back to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, then he helped
her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped Daddy take his pants off,
then Aunt Jane and Daddy started doing the same thing that Mommy and
Uncle Bill used to do when Daddy was in the Army.” Moral: Sometimes you
need to listen to the whole story before you interrupt.
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Libertarians have been around for a very long time it seems.
February 18, 2007Francis Wayland: Preacher-Economist
By Laurence M. Vance
Posted on 2/8/2007
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[The following is the foreword to a reprint of Francis Wayland’s 1837 book, The Elements of Political Economy.The complete book can be viewed online here. A hardcopy is available from the Francis Wayland Institute.]
One of the great but long-forgotten works of political economy from the nineteenth century was not written by a politician or an economist — it was written by the Baptist minister Francis Wayland (1796–1865). He was equally an author, a preacher, a teacher, a pastor, and an administrator.
After a brief period of study for the ministry, and an even briefer stint as a college tutor, Wayland accepted the pastorate of a Baptist church in Boston, and remained there for four years. He distinguished himself throughout his life as both an effective preacher and a prolific author. Near the end of his life he served as the pastor of a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, and devoted himself to humanitarian causes.
Between his two pastorates, Wayland served as president of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. During his presidency Wayland authored what became one of the most widely used and influential American textbooks of the nineteenth century, The Elements of Moral Science. First published in 1835, it was reprinted with a lengthy introduction in 1963 by Harvard University Press.
Because he was a Baptist minister, it is no surprise that Wayland held to the absolute authority of the Bible. But he was equally an advocate of liberty, property, and peace. And because of his strong religious convictions, he made no attempt to separate God from these things. In fact, he grounded them in the will of God.
Politically, Wayland was a Jeffersonian, but said: “I do not wish to be connected with politics. Indeed, I dare not commit myself with politicians. No one knows what they will be next year by what they are this year.” When speaking about liberty, he sounds like a contemporary libertarian:
Thus a man has an entire right to use his own body as he will, provided he do not so use it as to interfere with the rights of his neighbor. He may go where he will and stay where he please; he may work or be idle; he may pursue one occupation or another or no occupation at all; and it is the concern of no one else, if he leave inviolate the rights of everyone else; that is, if he leave everyone else in the undisturbed enjoyment of those means of happiness bestowed upon him by the Creator.
Wayland likewise considered the right of property to be “the right to use something as I choose, provided I do not so use it as to interfere with the rights of my neighbor.” Because he believed that “men will not labor continuously nor productively” unless they receive some benefit from their labor, Wayland deplored property “held in common” because under such an arrangement there was “no connexion between labor and the rewards of labor.” He insisted that the “division of property, or the appropriation, to each, of his particular portion of that which God has given to all, lays at the foundation of all accumulation of wealth, and of all progress in civilization.”
Wayland took what would now be considered “politically incorrect” positions on voting, poverty, and “the rich.” Voting privileges should be restricted to “those who are able to read and write.” He was opposed to “poor laws,” and regularly defended “the rich” from the false notions frequently advanced against them. Indeed, one reason why Wayland considered poor laws so “destructive” is because they falsely assume “that the rich are under obligation to support the poor.”
Because Wayland considered all wars to be “contrary to the will of God,” he believed that “the individual has no right to commit to society, nor society to government, the power to declare war.” He further maintained that no one was obligated to support his government in an aggressive war. He depicted the Mexican War as “wicked, infamous, unconstitutional in design, and stupid and shockingly depraved in its management” — sentiments one might hear today about the war in Iraq. Wayland was not a subscriber to the “broken window” fallacy, and faithfully described the negative economic consequences of war:
Of all the modes of national expenditure, the most enormous is that of war. In the first place, the expense of the munitions of war is overwhelming. In the next place, the most athletic and vigorous laborers must be selected for slaughter. Of these the time and labor are wholly unproductive. The operations of industry, in both belligerent nations, are thus greatly paralyzed. The destruction of property, in the district through which an army passes, is generally very great. All this must be taken from the earnings of a people; and is so much capital absolutely destroyed, from which multitudes might have reared, and have lived in prosperity.
Although it was never as popular as his The Elements of Moral Science, Wayland’s textbook on economics, The Elements of Political Economy, is a classic that deserves a hearing even though it was written almost two centuries ago. First published in 1837, it was soon afterward published in abridged and revised editions. It is my contention that a reexamination of The Elements of Political Economy is beneficial because Wayland’s economic principles are not only sound, insightful, and in some cases profound, his emphasis on human action both echoes and predates Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) and the Austrian School of economics. One can hold to the absolute authority of scripture and be a strong advocate of liberty and the free market. Conservative Christianity and laissez-faire economics are not incompatible.
Wayland’s book contains the substance of his lectures on political economy that he delivered to the senior class at Brown University. Wayland says he “labored to express the general principles in the plainest manner possible, and to illustrate them by cases with which every person is familiar.” One reason Wayland presents these maxims in such a plain manner is that there are no graphs or mathematical formulas in his book to obscure them.
The Elements of Political Economy is a treatise under the four divisions of Production, Exchange, Distribution, and Consumption. Production addresses “the laws which govern the application of labor to capital in the creation of value.” Exchange addresses “the principles which govern men, when they wish, by means of their own labor, to avail themselves of the labor of others.” Distribution deals with “the laws by which those who have united in the creation of a product, receive, respectively, their portion of the result.” And Consumption discusses “the laws which should govern us in the destruction of value.”
Each division, or “book,” as Wayland terms them, is further divided into chapters, parts, and sections. The book as a whole is meticulously organized. Wayland’s lengthy Introduction is itself a discourse on the basic principles of value, supply and demand, and the gains from trade.
The emphasis in The Elements of Political Economy is always on industry, frugality, thrift, innovation, entrepreneurship, property, competition, the division of labor, labor-saving devices, and capital. And rather than exalting the laborer and scorning the capitalist, the merchant, the retailer, the exchanger (middleman), and the money-lender — as is usually the case — Wayland earnestly defends them.
With but few exceptions, economists — from the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers to the teacher fresh out of graduate school — are interventionists to the core. They believe that the government should have a major role in the economy or at least intervene in the event of market “failure.” I am pleased to report that this is not the case with Francis Wayland. Whether he is discussing usury laws, money and banking, internal improvements, or trade restrictions, the detrimental effect of government intervention is a theme that appears throughout The Elements of Political Economy.
To begin with, Wayland disparages legislation and legislators. He specifically mentions five forms of detrimental “legislative interference”: the granting of monopolies, obliging someone to engage in labor or investment against their wishes, restrictions on industry, obliging someone to change his mode of employment, and sumptuary laws. Legislators fail as central planners because:
Not only are legislators, who generally assume the labor of directing the manner in which labor or capital shall be employed, in no manner peculiarly qualified for this task; they are, in many respects, peculiarly disqualified for it. The individual is liable to no peculiar biases, in making up his mind in respect to the profitableness of an investment. If he err, it is because the indications deceive him. The legislator, besides being liable to err by mistaking the indications, is liable to be misled by party zeal, by political intrigue, and by sectional prejudice. What individual would succeed in his business, if he allowed himself to be influenced in the manner of conducting it, by such considerations?
Wayland’s discussion of money and banking takes up 100 pages, or one-fourth of his entire book. His treatment of the history, nature, and purpose of money is straightforward. His conclusion is that “gold and silver possess all the essential qualities which are required in a circulating medium.” He was against government regulation of money, and believed that government has no right “to prevent the exportation or importation of specie,” “to alter the value of money,” or “to fix the relative value between the precious metals.”
Wayland also spoke at length about paper money. He saw the only advantages to using paper money as economy and convenience. Otherwise, it is liable to forgery, fraud, and fluctuation. Wayland did not demonize banking. Banks increase the productiveness of capital and facilitate exchange. They should be treated as any other business; the legislature has no authority to protect them “against the consequences of their own misconduct.” Banks should be obligated to redeem their bills in specie, but otherwise not be subject to legislative interference.
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Although it is commonly accepted now, the role of the state in undertaking the task of internal improvements was very much an issue in the period before the Civil War. Wayland, writing in 1837, was opposed to the state undertaking the work of internal improvements. The benefits of exchange and the absurdity of trade restrictions are another focal point of Wayland’s book. His free-trade credentials are impeccable. Not only did he reject the notion that there is a “loser” in an exchange, he maintained that “universal exchange is as necessary to the welfare, and even to the existence of the human race, as universal production.” There should be no restrictions that hinder an individual from purchasing or selling “where he pleases” or controls on “the nature or the quantity of the articles which he exports or imports.”
We cannot call Francis Wayland an Austrian economist in the true sense of the word. Not only did he write The Elements of Political Economy before Carl Menger (1840–1921) was born, there are no specific discussions in his book of the business cycle, marginal utility, or subjective value. It is also probably true that Wayland would have preferred to be remembered as a preacher, an educator, or a philanthropist. But for someone who would not have considered himself an economist, Wayland’s work on economics is both insightful and immensely practical. His emphasis on property, capital, entrepreneurship, and above all, his commitment to human action and not government action, makes his long-forgotten work on economics worthy of a revival.
Laurence M. Vance is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. He is also the director of the Francis Wayland Institute. See his archive. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.
This foreword is an edited version of the article, “Francis Wayland: Preacher-Economist,” and is reprinted with permission of the publisher from The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy (Winter 2006, vol. X, no. 3, pp. 401–410). © Copyright 2006, The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, California 94621–1428 (email info@independent.org).
Francis Wayland’s 1837 book The Elements of Political Economy can be viewed online here. A hardcopy is available from the Francis Wayland Institute.
Often I am looked at as if I have developed something rather new. It just isn’t so people!
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