Mar 23

American Universities Have Become Orwellian Thought-Control Zones Where Diverse Views Are Rarely Allowed

dayrage_dees

Brown University is like many others. Expensive, and overwhelmingly socialist in its messaging and content delivery. Reason Magazine recently reported on a debate at Brown University that featured a typical socialist, government-trusting professor (of which there are many hundreds if not thousands) debating libertarian-feminist Wendy McElroy. The Brown University students were so sheltered from non-government, alternative views that the organizers of the event set up a shelter area with stuffed animals, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and cookies so that students could hide from McElroy’s views.

Reason Magazine reported that students at preschools and daycare facilities were better able to embrace diverse views. In fact,

To say that the 18-year-olds at Brown who sought refuge from ideas that offended them are behaving like toddlers is actually to insult the toddlers—who don’t attend daycare by choice, and who routinely demonstrate more intellectual courage than these students seem capable of. (Anyone who has ever observed a child tackling blocks for the first time, or taking a chance on the slide, knows what I mean.)

Mar 23

FBI Agents Are Now Paid More than Doctors or Lawyers

statlib

Trusters of government can often be heard griping about the “one percent.” Often, these delusional government trusters call for more government; more government regulators of industry, more laws and regulations to control businesses, and slave-plantation-level taxation on industry. Yet increasingly, the one percenters can be found in the ranks of government bureaucrats. Consider that the average five-year FBI agent makes more than $120,000 annually in salary alone. And that figure does not include the benefits. The Lewrockwell.com report is here.

There are many communities in the west where the largest houses are owned by federal bureaucrats. It is as if federal policymakers are seeking to remake America in the model of nineteenth-century British colonialism, where huddled masses of peasants would be made to service the desires of an imperial governor in a gilded mansion.

Mar 23

A video of a helicopter recovery of a dead climber from Grand Teton


by Dr. Roger I. Roots,
Founder of Lysander Spooner University

Last year I attempted (unsuccessfully) to climb Grand Teton via the “upper Exum” route. I had twice previously summited by way of the easier ‘Owen-Spaulding’ route. While trudging uphill above the area known as ‘the meadow,’ I observed a helicopter flying around above.

I also remember being passed by a very fit hiker bearing a pack that seemed to indicate he was with the Jackson Hole Guide Service. I am not often passed on high mountain trails.

Just below the ‘Lower Saddle,’ I encountered a man and a woman descending. I remember thinking they seemed unfriendly at the time. I asked if they knew anything about the helicopter flying around above, and they indicated they were ‘waiting’ to find out what it was about.

Upon reaching the lower saddle, I was immediately confronted by a uniformed park ranger who asked me about my intentions. He told me that the Exum route was off-limits and that I would need to climb Grand Teton by way of the Owen-Spalding route. The ranger indicated there had been a climbing fatality along the beginnings of the upper exum route.

An hour or so later, I was up above a pair of rangers who were wrapping the dead body of a climber for helicopter removal. I filmed–unexpertly–this helicopter recovery.

Mar 23

More cash-strapped Americans turn to tax refund advances

torn_dees

If you save anything in modern America, you are an utter fool. The Federal Reserve Bank has set interest rates at near zero for years now, and almost all of the world’s central banks are also pouring out paper currency at near-zero (or below-zero) interest rates.

In the modern world–erected wholly upon a financing model designed to benefit the expansion of government power–savers are punished, while debtors are rewarded. Increasing percentages of Americans (especially Americans at the bottom of the socio-economic structure) are cashing out 401ks, stripping retirement accounts of value, and becoming renters rather than owners.

Now we read that more and more Americans are seeking tax refund advances. The link is here.

And remember that many poor Americans will find in 2015 that even their expected refunds are smaller than ever before, due to the Obamacare penalty.

Stay tuned!

Mar 21

Decades of Extravagant Spending on Public Education Have Produced Few Good Results

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Cato Institute’s Daniel Mitchell describes U.S. spending on public schools in this way: “Never Have so Many Paid so Much to Achieve so Little.” Incredibly, Americans are made to pay more for schooling than the parents of any other society. Yet American students–ranked head to head with students in other countries–perform very poorly. The graph above illustrates how much public spending has achieved so little.

Mar 21

Why do so many U.S. weapons fall into enemy hands? Will We Soon Be Attacked By Them?

Ron Paul

Why do people who call themselves “conservatives” and who claim to advocate “limited government” worship big military? Former Congressman Ron Paul wonders why so many dollars worth of U.S. military weapons have supposedly fallen into the hands of “enemies.” “Building weapons and seeing them end up in the hands of the enemy is almost a routine event,” says Doctor Paul.

A recent headline in Mother Jones read: “US Weapons Have A Nasty Habit of Going AWOL.” The report was about $500 million worth of military equipment that is unaccounted for in Yemen.

It is hard to believe this is attributable to incompetence alone (though all government operations tend to be incompetent).

Is there a darker plot behind these “lost weapon” stories? Will we soon be attacked by weapons we paid for?

Stay tuned. . . .

Mar 20

Virtually all Manmade-Global-Warming Science–Almost All of Which Supports Expanding Government–Has Been Funded by Governments

mhiker

According to the book “Merchants of Smear” by Russell Cook, the U.S. government alone spent more than $106 billion in taxpayer funds to research and support alarmist climate research between 2003 and 2010, as well as billions more on ineffective renewable energy boondoggles. Much of the taxpayer-supported alleged scientists refuse to let other scientists, IPCC reviewers, or FOIA investigators view their raw data, computer codes, or computer algorithms. The alarmist “scientists” claim the information is private property, even though taxpayers paid for the work and the results.

Cook’s book also exposes the widely-repeated “97 percent consensus” claim as highly imaginative. The claim, according to Cook, is based on a study by a University of Queensland professor claiming 97 percent of published scientific papers agree humans caused at least half of the 1.3º F (0.7º C) global warming since 1950; in reality, only 41 of the 11,944 papers cited explicitly said this.

Mar 20

A Private-Sector website that directed consumers to different health-insurance options already existed before the Obamacare website flop

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Most of us remember two years ago when the government’s Obamacare website was launched. Americans watched in horror as the website crashed, failed to function and was hacked. At a cost to taxpayers of many tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

It was a lesson in how government enterprises perform.

Of course, ANY American with an IQ above 85 could have produced a working website to help consumers identify health-insurance options for less than a million dollars. If he couldn’t do it himself, he could have paid a webmaster to build such a site for, say, a hundred thousand dollars. Almost anyone in the business would have jumped at the opportunity. And the original guy would have pocketed $900,000. ANY AMERICAN COULD HAVE DONE IT FOR A MILLION DOLLARS–and most would have made a handsome profit.

Now we read from former congressman Allen West that THERE ACTUALLY WAS a private-sector website that could do what the Obamacare website failed to do. It was called eHealthInsurance.com.

The ehealthinsurance.com site was in the business of helping consumers find health insurance options on their own. The private-sector site had built-in security protections to keep consumers’ confidential information private. And it was free or cheap. Who knew?

Mar 20

Congressional Republicans Introduce Proposed Budget that Increases Spending by at least 4 %; Democrats Cry that Republicans Intend to Slash Spending

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If ever there were one graph showing how broken the U.S. government is, it is the graph above. The graph shows the current proposed Republican (“Grand Old Party”) budget in comparison to the Democrats’ suggested budget for the next decade. (Thanks to Daniel Mitchell of Townhall.com.) Both continue growing government significantly, however some economists hope that the GOP plan may grow government at a rate slower than the growth of U.S. G.D.P.

Mar 19

Government Funding of Higher Education Takes Money from the Poor and Transfers it to the Rich

guantanamo

Why are taxpayers made to own or pay for government colleges and universities they do not attend? The only plausible explanation is that government-owned colleges somehow meet the needs of people in ways that private colleges do not.

There is scant support for such a proposition.

In fact, governmental support for higher education has actually backfired on its intended beneficiaries (if providing higher education to the poor is the intention).

“Frequently it will actually be the better-off who succeed in having themselves subsidized by the worse-off. Consider, for example, the almost universal practice of offering a ‘free’ university education, whereby the working class, whose children rarely attend universities, pay through taxation for the education of middle-class children!” Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God that Failed (2002, p. 97.))

A 2003 study showed that the most underrepresented group of Americans at the nation’s top universities is low-income Americans. Only 3% of freshmen at the top 146 most selective colleges came from the bottom quarter of U.S. households by income. Only 10% come from the bottom half (Anthony Carnevale of Educational Testing Service 2003//).