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Showing posts from 2011

Liberal Fascism

I am reading the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. I have agreed with the premise of this book long before it was written.  He points out that liberals have made it their mission to incorrectly foist the 'fascist' label upon what we today consider the right-wing, or Conservative political beliefs.  In reality, that could not be more incorrect.  Fascism is a liberal phenomenon, almost by definition.  We were taught by academia (quite incorrectly) that the politics of Hitler and Mussolini was right-wing, when in fact it's left wing.  Fascism goes hand in hand with national socialism, and it frankly cannot function in a true right-wing limited-government environment. In the modern American sense, a conservative (or traditional classical liberal) believes in small, limited government, typically limited by a written constitution.  Conservatives believe in the individual- that the pursuit of an individual's self-interest is also what ...

Freedom in the Workplace

I am a passionate defender of freedom, both in and out of the workplace.  I am a big believer that hiring talented, trustworthy, high performance employees and treating them with respect is a recipe for a successful company.  In an environment such as that, you invariably will have far greater overall productivity and mutual respect between employer and employee than you do in locked-down environments where employees are treated like prisoners. I also do not believe in wielding information technology as a weapon- dictating which web sites employees may or may not visit, or who they may or may not email or call or message.  If you hire intelligent employees, who respect the company that they work for- they will work just that much harder because they realize that their employer treats them like an adult.  Those employees who abuse freedom should not be employees in the first place.  In today’s world, there is no clear delineation between work and home....

On Open Carry

I live in Indiana, a state which has allowed those with a state issued 'License to Carry Handgun' to do so since 1980. The law makes absolutely no distinction on carrying openly or concealed. Since I got my permit at the age of 18, I have carried a firearm through the years, both openly and concealed. The obvious reason someone would want to carry a firearm is to provide for the protection of themselves, their family, and fellow citizens who they may be in a position to come to the aid of. Not, frankly, unlike law enforcement. Also, citizens who choose to shoulder the responsibility of carrying a firearm are, simply by doing so, reducing crime. Those who carry concealed are contributing to the deterrence that affects a would be criminal's decision to commit a crime- especially violent crimes like robbery, rape, and homicide. Someone contemplating committing a crime will obviously think twice if he is concerned that people around him might have firearms, and thus be ab...

Anti Social Networking

For my entire professional life, I have promoted the free exchange of information. I have personally enabled thousands of people to access the Internet for the first time. I've helped many of those people along, showing them the ropes- and how to utilize the vast information resource that is the Internet. From the very beginning, the Internet has helped to enable social networking- in the form of email, Internet relay chat, and forums to voice over IP telephony, and videoconferencing. All of these technologies utilize the Internet to enable humans to better communicate with one another and share information. Ultimately that is the purpose of the Internet. Also, from the very beginning, there have been those doomsayers who have preached that the Internet is 'evil' and that nothing good happens on the Internet. Those who say that as soon as you connect to the Internet you'll be flooded with viruses and spam, or someone will steal your credit card or banking in...

On Jobs and the Debt Ceiling

One thing that tends to annoy me to no end is politicians talking about jobs and promising job creation. First, politicians cannot create jobs- at least not real jobs. People besieging the President to 'create jobs' are misguided at best, socialists at worst. The only jobs that politicians have the power to create are government jobs. The President can create 10,000 IRS jobs for example, with the snap of his finger, as long as Congress approves the budget to fund them. However the problem with this is that the funding has to come from somewhere- and it comes from taxpayers. Taxes fund government. Thus, to create 10,000 government jobs, the money has to be taken away from millions of Americans who would have used that money to better their lives and families by spending or investing that money, thereby creating REAL jobs- private sector jobs. Thus the creation of government jobs results in at least the same number of private-sector jobs being eliminated. After all, if a...

Arizona Shooting

Nearly everyone has heard about the shooting in Arizona- where obviously unstable Jared Lee Loughner went on a shooting spree killing 6 people and wounding 14 others. What you probably didn't hear about (because the liberal media tends to ignore these sort of details) is that armed citizen Joseph Zamudio helped to subdue the shooter . He was next door at a Walgreens when the shooting took place- he reacted as any good armed citizen would- he hurried to the scene where he heard shots being fired. Unfortunately, by the time he was in range of the suspect, the suspect had already been subdued by others, and Joseph helped to hold him down until the police arrived. Had he been in the crowd, or closer to the scene, he likely would have saved many lives by shooting Mr. Loughner dead in his tracks. Obviously the headlines would have read quite differently had that happened- and it almost did. That's why it's so important that responsible citizens arm themselves and take it upo...