So you voted for Bush because “he won’t raise taxes”. So far this has been true. He’s lowered lots of taxes for the extremely rich and hasn’t raised taxes on the middle class. However, he’s spending like a drunk sailer on leave. $200 billion in Iraq and growing, $100 billion for disaster relief and growing with no end in sight. None of this money was in the budget. Not a single penny. So where do you think it’s coming from? We borrow it. From who? China mostly these days. How much interest do you think we pay a year on $7 trillion each year? Well, my friend, about $385 billion. And we’re not paying on the principle.

Currently our national debt sits at about $7.9 trillion and it grows at a rate of about $45,000 per second.

You can bitch and moan all you want about Clinton and the hummers he got in the Oval Office, but at least he was doing something about it. Some of my friends joke that Clinton was the best Republican President the US ever had and, to some extent, I agree. Sure he was for gun control, but he balanced the budget and managed to actually pay on the principle of the national debt. He also scaled back the military and oversaw one of the largest economic booms in US history.

If that doesn’t warrant the occasional hummer from an intern I don’t know what does.

Okay, I know there are a lot of people that find pornography offensive. It shines a bright light on some of the most taboo subjects known to man, which makes some people uncomfortable. It’s such a huge problem, evidently, that the FBI is paying agents to search for “deviant Internet porn”.

Where does one start with this lunacy? What constitutes “deviant” porn? The reason this is so strange is because the FBI is, for the first time, going after not just kiddie porn, but porn showing two consenting adults. Even worse is that the FBI and the US Attorney General considers this to be a top priority.

Don’t get me wrong. We should be busting people who view and peddle child pornography, but haven’t we got better things for FBI agents to worry about? For example, finding out where the hell is Osama bin Laden?

I bet you voted for him because he’s good looking or seemed like a “nice young man”. I was reading an extremely ironic story about the homophobic senator when I happened upon this little gem.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the Senator suggested that the government has the right to prohibit gay and lesbian individuals from expressing love for each other physically. “The idea is that the state doesn’t have rights to limit individuals’ wants and passions. I disagree with that,” said the Senator, “I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we’re seeing it in our society.”

At face value this seems to make sense. For instance, maybe my desire is to kill 1,000 people and then burn their corpses while dancing around the fire. That’s a desire that should be limited no doubt, however, where do we stop? At what point do we say, “This desire of yours should not be allowed.”?

It’s at this point I turn to what I feel is the essence of Libertarianism. If an act occurs between two consenting adults and that consent can be proven then I don’t have a problem with it as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else.

Here’s a good example. It’s illegal in many states to have “unnatural sex”. Who defines this term? Who does it apply to? Everyone? As a crazy lady with a blonde buzz cut once said, “Stop the insanity!”

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.” And, to the vast majority of Americans, a good beer ranks highly. Personally, of course, I think that anyone over 18, which last time I checked made them a legal adult, should be able to consume cool tasty beverages in a responsible manner whenever and wherever they wish. Today, we find out that a man is fighting for what he describes is his Constitutional right to get drunk on private property.

Laverriere argues that the Massachusetts Protective Custody Law was written to combat public drunkenness and that the police had no right to use it to take him from a private residence. He also says he had planned to spend the night at his friend’s and wasn’t going to be driving anywhere.

So, let me get this straight. A guy goes over to his friend’s party and gets drunk. The police show up and remove him from a private residence because he’s drunk. It’s a sad day in America when you can’t have some beers with your buddies in your own home. Ol’ Ben is rolling over in his grave as we speak.

I was having a conversation with a former colleague of mine about my recent flag burning post. While he thinks the proposed amendment is not a great idea, he thinks that burning the flag is disrespectful and, if you don’t like living in the US, you should leave. I, personally, think you should be able to do whatever you like with the flag – it is YOUR flag after all.

Remy also owns a bunch of guns. He thinks guns are cool. I’ve never had the need or desire to own a weapon. Again, we’re at odds, but I don’t argue with the fact that it’s totally his right to own as many guns as he wants.

You see the freedom in these two scenarios? Choice. He chooses to own guns and not burn flags, while others are free to not own guns and burn flags. Those are tangible examples of freedoms that both Republicans and Democrats are trying to take away from you. Freedoms we’ve had for 200 years.

What makes this country great isn’t some piece of cloth, the fact that you can buys as many guns as you want or the fact that you can abort your unborn child. What makes this country so great is that you have the choice to do those things.

If Democrats and Republicans get their way people will start losing their ability to make their own choices. It’s already illegal for adults to make lots of choices. Here are a few things that you no longer have a choice on how to act.

1. Wearing a seat belt
2. Consuming narcotics
3. Wearing a helmet
4. Marry people of the same sex

Here are four choices that you are no longer allowed to make. You know what strikes me is that these choices are my choice to make. They don’t affect anyone else, with the exception of number four, which shouldn’t matter either if the other person agrees as well.

Look around people. Two men or women getting married shouldn’t anger you. Abortion shouldn’t anger you. The fact that you have or are losing the right to make those choices is what should make you angry.

What’s on your representatives’ minds? Iraq? Social Security? Maybe they are giving our current dependency on foreign oil some thought? Nope, they’re worried about people burning the US flag. So worried, in fact, the House of Representatives have taken the drastic step of approving a Constitutional amendment. To make matters worse the proposed amendment is absurdly vague.

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

The funny part is that the the US Flag Code specifically states that the flag should be disposed of by burning it.

The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

Also, what does desecration mean, exactly? According to Wiktionary it means the following.

An act of disrespect or impiety towards something considered sacred; blasphemy, sacrilege or profanation.

First of all I have problems with the country’s near religious worshipping of a piece of cloth. Why is it so sacred? The ideals it represents should be held in higher esteem. At any rate, what constitutes desecration? The amendment is worded in such a way that anything could be construed as desecration. Can I still wear my hammer pants with the flag on them? What if I leave the flag out in the rain because I’m forgetful? Am I breaking the law?

Never mind the fact that 95% of all the flag burning you see on TV takes place in a foreign country. Idiots.

UPDATE: It appears that it is already illegal to desecrate the flag, which makes this proposed amendment even more confusing to me.

Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles,
burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag
of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
for not more than one year, or both.

Are you a douche bag driving a huge SUV and feeling guilty about all the smog you produce?

If so, then you can, of course, buy yourself some comfort on the open market. The idea is that you can purchase emission credits from the open emissions exchange from a smog producing company. By reducing the number of credits a company has it reduces the amount of crap they can spew into the air.

This is exactly the type of idea a Libertarian tree hugger would come up with. The idea is that if enough people purchased credits and didn’t use them, then companies would be forced to upgrade their emission systems because they wouldn’t have the extra credits they normally would have purchased on the open emissions exchange.

Interesting to say the least.