blog of bile » House of Representatives

AP: Libertarians seek a place in the New Hampshire sun

bile — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:58:03 +0000

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090725/ap_on_re_us/us_camping_for_freedom

By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer Adam Geller, Ap National Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago

LANCASTER, N.H. – He fled the “People’s Republic of Massachusetts” to escape tyranny. Now he strides the campground in a plaid kilt and mirror shades, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle across his torso, an immense Scottish sword sheathed between his shoulders.

Out here, though, the only signs of danger are the ones warning drivers to watch out for moose. Could it be he senses a threat we’re not seeing?

“Not expecting,” says the swordsman, who calls himself Doobie, grinning broadly. “Just ready.”

There’s no escaping the long arm of big government — even here at the far edge of a state whose license plate decrees that without freedom from oppressive authority you might as well choose death. But for Doobie and 500 others, this tent colony on this particular weekend is about as close to Libertarian Nirvana as they’re likely to get.

They’ve come for the Porcupine Freedom Festival, four days of beer, burgers and bonfires. But more importantly, they are here to carve out an enclave of less government and more liberty to do as they wish.

They are here to show a lost nation the way back to its political roots.

It hasn’t been an easy message to sell these past few years. Their group, the Free State Project, has struggled to attract followers. But now, with Americans thinking anew about the reach and role of government, Free Staters see at least the hint of an opening.

So this weekend, they drink to the future. Between swigs of a custom brew called Overregulated Ale, they ridicule the Federal Reserve, applaud the defeat of a bill that would have required the wearing of seat belts, bemoan higher taxes and restrictions on gun rights.

“We said bad things are going to happen and they happen,” Jason Sorens, a political science professor, preaching to the crowd clustered around picnic tables. “We say, we told you so.”___

Flapping overhead, on lines between spruce trees where others might dry bathing suits, Free Staters fly the Gadsden flag, with its serpent and warning to government: “Don’t Tread on Me.”

They circle around one activist’s PT Cruiser to test tactics for dealing with government’s front-line troops. “How will you perform when confronted by the police?” the schedule of events for the session asks. “You’ll know once you practice.”

Dozens walk through Porc Fest with handguns hanging from their waists, an unexpected sight on the way to mini-golf.

“I want to excite you to take hold of your liberty,” Dan Itse, a New Hampshire legislator, tells more than 70 who fill the campground’s TV room for a Friday afternoon declaration of state’s rights to freedom from federal control. “You’re the only one who can defend your liberty in the end.”

The threat of overreaching government is not new, Free Staters say, but it is rising. They wonder if more Americans aren’t starting to realize that, too — before it’s too late.

Last fall’s protests against the economic bailout has been followed by public disapproval of the Obama’s administration takeover of General Motors. In 36 states, legislators have introduced resolutions modeled on Itse’s declaring their sovereignty over matters including the right to bear arms, citing the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which delineates the federal government’s powers. Free Staters approve — though they are distrustful of most politicians.

Still, they are convinced the country will eventually recognize the truth. Just have a look, says Free Stater William Domenico, pointing to 18 fresh recruits from Florida, North Carolina and beyond, piling off a bus after a day’s tour.

“Why?” asks Domenico, himself a refugee from an over-licensed life in Colorado. “Because they want government off their backs.”

___

Americans’ faith in government ebbs and flows, with voters giving Washington more rope during times of crisis. Even then, though, uncertainty lingers.

“Underneath it all, there is a suspicion of government doing too much,” says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, which has long tracked public opinion on the matter. “That’s a general strain of American culture.”

Dislike of big government goes all the way back to colonists fed up with an English king, and a Constitution written to keep power in check.

The Civil War and the Great Depression shifted the balance, asserting the expanded power of federal government.

“None of these powers were ever formally given to these people (government officials) and so occasionally, whenever people notice that the federal government is behaving this way, they get really outraged by it,” said Kevin R.C. Gutzman, a constitutional scholar at Western Connecticut State University.

After World War II, broad political consensus saw most Americans willing to follow Washington’s lead, says Marc Hetherington, a Vanderbilt University professor and expert on public trust in government. But wariness soon returned, though not nearly to the extent hoped for by some advocates of less government.

“If we do not carve out a sphere of freedom now, freedom will be lost for a long time to come,” Sorens, then a Yale University doctoral student, wrote in July of 2001.

He and a few like-minded thinkers met over bagels in Asheville, N.C., and devised a plan. They called upon hardcore activists to move to a small state and do everything possible to take over and scale back government.

The timing of their pitch couldn’t have been much worse.

Weeks after the Free State Project started, al-Qaida terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The attacks, two wars and two recessions over the past eight years unsettled U.S. voters’ attitudes toward government.

In the fall of 2001, for the first and only time since Gallup began asking the question, the number of Americans who said they wanted government to do more reached 50 percent.

“After 9/11 we had a hard time,” says Sorens, now a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “We had some people quit because they said they didn’t want to become part of a secession movement, even though we weren’t.”

Free Staters pushed ahead, choosing as their destination New Hampshire, whose voters have a hard-earned reputation for political independence. They set out to recruit 20,000 activists by 2006 to sign a pledge to move within five years.

Some of the most spirited moved immediately, but recruitment lagged. The group now has 9,400 participants. About 450 have moved to New Hampshire, joining 250 already there.

The small band of Free Staters in New Hampshire has been trying both conventional and more novel strategies to curtail it government’s role.

A number have run for office. Four have won seats in the 400-member state House of Representatives, the largest in the country. Free State activists have campaigned furiously against measures perceived as emblematic of excessive government, like a mandatory seatbelt bill and budget hikes.

Meanwhile, a group of mostly younger Free Staters have decided the best way to keep government in its place is to needle it.

One Free Stater spent 58 days in jail after filming in a courthouse lobby and refusing to give police his name. Behind bars, he preached the message of less government to fellow inmates.

Others have organized a crew to pick up garbage around a Manchester playground with handguns strapped to their hips, to test the right to bear arms. They’ve filmed police officers on patrol and judges on the bench.

They’ve even filed each other’s nails on a public sidewalk, defying state requirements that manicurists be licensed, their cuticles defying the heavy hand of government.

___

At June’s end, they pack Roger’s Campground to breathe deeply of mountain air, camaraderie and a life away from government.

The weekend is a big party. But it is also a statement, based on sober thinking and often rooted in personal experience.

Carla Gericke’s view on government were jolted in 2003. She was a New Yorker then, living in a city two years removed from 9/11 but still deeply unsettled.

She and her husband were out for walk near their apartment when they rounded a corner and ran into a SWAT officer shouldering a submachine gun, a police dog at his side. Gericke’s mind immediately flashed back to her native South Africa and the apartheid-era government troops who used fear to keep the peace.

“There are a lot of people (in the Free State Project) who have come from what I’d call police states,” says Gericke, who relocated to New Hampshire in 2006. “Now we’ve moved to America because it was land of the free. And it’s like, Ha Ha. Suckers!”

Pamela Ean’s misgivings about government were confirmed at work. A high school teacher, Ean was frustrated trying to meet the testing standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. She calls it an illegal power grab by the federal government, and doesn’t see it ending there.

“When you think about it, the federal government is taking over the banking institutions. They’re taking over industry. It’s scary. I mean, what’s next?” asks Ean, who last year ran together with her 19-year-old son for a state legislative seat. They both lost in the primary, but helped unseat the 13-term Republican incumbent.

People have arrived at this ideological destination by different routes. There’s the substantial right-to-bear-arms crowd. Some want drug laws loosened. Others are focused on the economy and see government’s hand as the source of the problems.

Still others get their hackles up over high taxes.

“Once upon a time America was unquestionably the freest nation in the world by a huge margin. That’s not the case anymore and people are starting to realize that,” says Varrin Swearingen, an airline pilot who is president of the group. “The further we go down the path to destruction, particularly economically lately, the more interesting this becomes to more people.”

While more Free Staters lean Republican, there’s little enthusiasm here for George W. Bush, whose administration is viewed as having broken promises to make government smaller. His Democratic replacement, meanwhile, draws backhanded applause.

“I’m glad Obama’s president,” says Lydia Harman, an activist who brings her 6-month-old son to an afternoon talk on state sovereignty. She makes it clear that she and the Democrat don’t agree on a single issue, but that’s not the point: “He wants to centralize everything. … Because of what he’s doing, at the pace that he’s doing it, people are waking up.”

___

With the early morning sun climbing fast, a handful of Free Staters crouch low in a gravel lot to test their resolve on distant targets. Shoulders tense, eyes focused down the length of .22-caliber rifles, they’re trying to take out the “redcoats” with 13 bullets — one for each of the original colonies.

“This is what America is all about — individual freedom, less intrusive government, self-reliance,” says gunsmith Tony Stelik, a political refugee from 1980s’ Communist Poland. “Now it’s rulers are trying to change it.”

Down to her last target, shooter Alicia Lekas nails it, although she seems an unlikely citizen soldier. Lekas makes a living teaching Scottish folk dancing. Her America is embodied in a story of the time a tree fell on a friend’s house near Concord and, instead of waiting for government, neighbors responded with their own chain saws.

She says she can’t imagine shooting a living creature, but she’ll do it if the need arises.

“A bad guy might be the individual crook,” the new rifleman says, “Or it might be somebody who’s taken over government.”

Either way, she’s ready.

By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer Adam Geller, Ap National Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago

LANCASTER, N.H. – He fled the “People’s Republic of Massachusetts” to escape tyranny. Now he strides the campground in a plaid kilt and mirror shades, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle across his torso, an immense Scottish sword sheathed between his shoulders.

Out here, though, the only signs of danger are the ones warning drivers to watch out for moose. Could it be he senses a threat we’re not seeing?

“Not expecting,” says the swordsman, who calls himself Doobie, grinning broadly. “Just ready.”

There’s no escaping the long arm of big government — even here at the far edge of a state whose license plate decrees that without freedom from oppressive authority you might as well choose death. But for Doobie and 500 others, this tent colony on this particular weekend is about as close to Libertarian Nirvana as they’re likely to get.

They’ve come for the Porcupine Freedom Festival, four days of beer, burgers and bonfires. But more importantly, they are here to carve out an enclave of less government and more liberty to do as they wish.

They are here to show a lost nation the way back to its political roots.

It hasn’t been an easy message to sell these past few years. Their group, the Free State Project, has struggled to attract followers. But now, with Americans thinking anew about the reach and role of government, Free Staters see at least the hint of an opening.

So this weekend, they drink to the future. Between swigs of a custom brew called Overregulated Ale, they ridicule the Federal Reserve, applaud the defeat of a bill that would have required the wearing of seat belts, bemoan higher taxes and restrictions on gun rights.

“We said bad things are going to happen and they happen,” Jason Sorens, a political science professor, preaching to the crowd clustered around picnic tables. “We say, we told you so.”

___

Flapping overhead, on lines between spruce trees where others might dry bathing suits, Free Staters fly the Gadsden flag, with its serpent and warning to government: “Don’t Tread on Me.”

They circle around one activist’s PT Cruiser to test tactics for dealing with government’s front-line troops. “How will you perform when confronted by the police?” the schedule of events for the session asks. “You’ll know once you practice.”

Dozens walk through Porc Fest with handguns hanging from their waists, an unexpected sight on the way to mini-golf.

“I want to excite you to take hold of your liberty,” Dan Itse, a New Hampshire legislator, tells more than 70 who fill the campground’s TV room for a Friday afternoon declaration of state’s rights to freedom from federal control. “You’re the only one who can defend your liberty in the end.”

The threat of overreaching government is not new, Free Staters say, but it is rising. They wonder if more Americans aren’t starting to realize that, too — before it’s too late.

Last fall’s protests against the economic bailout has been followed by public disapproval of the Obama’s administration takeover of General Motors. In 36 states, legislators have introduced resolutions modeled on Itse’s declaring their sovereignty over matters including the right to bear arms, citing the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which delineates the federal government’s powers. Free Staters approve — though they are distrustful of most politicians.

Still, they are convinced the country will eventually recognize the truth. Just have a look, says Free Stater William Domenico, pointing to 18 fresh recruits from Florida, North Carolina and beyond, piling off a bus after a day’s tour.

“Why?” asks Domenico, himself a refugee from an over-licensed life in Colorado. “Because they want government off their backs.”

___

Americans’ faith in government ebbs and flows, with voters giving Washington more rope during times of crisis. Even then, though, uncertainty lingers.

“Underneath it all, there is a suspicion of government doing too much,” says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, which has long tracked public opinion on the matter. “That’s a general strain of American culture.”

Dislike of big government goes all the way back to colonists fed up with an English king, and a Constitution written to keep power in check.

The Civil War and the Great Depression shifted the balance, asserting the expanded power of federal government.

“None of these powers were ever formally given to these people (government officials) and so occasionally, whenever people notice that the federal government is behaving this way, they get really outraged by it,” said Kevin R.C. Gutzman, a constitutional scholar at Western Connecticut State University.

After World War II, broad political consensus saw most Americans willing to follow Washington’s lead, says Marc Hetherington, a Vanderbilt University professor and expert on public trust in government. But wariness soon returned, though not nearly to the extent hoped for by some advocates of less government.

“If we do not carve out a sphere of freedom now, freedom will be lost for a long time to come,” Sorens, then a Yale University doctoral student, wrote in July of 2001.

He and a few like-minded thinkers met over bagels in Asheville, N.C., and devised a plan. They called upon hardcore activists to move to a small state and do everything possible to take over and scale back government.

The timing of their pitch couldn’t have been much worse.

Weeks after the Free State Project started, al-Qaida terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The attacks, two wars and two recessions over the past eight years unsettled U.S. voters’ attitudes toward government.

In the fall of 2001, for the first and only time since Gallup began asking the question, the number of Americans who said they wanted government to do more reached 50 percent.

“After 9/11 we had a hard time,” says Sorens, now a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “We had some people quit because they said they didn’t want to become part of a secession movement, even though we weren’t.”

Free Staters pushed ahead, choosing as their destination New Hampshire, whose voters have a hard-earned reputation for political independence. They set out to recruit 20,000 activists by 2006 to sign a pledge to move within five years.

Some of the most spirited moved immediately, but recruitment lagged. The group now has 9,400 participants. About 450 have moved to New Hampshire, joining 250 already there.

The small band of Free Staters in New Hampshire has been trying both conventional and more novel strategies to curtail it government’s role.

A number have run for office. Four have won seats in the 400-member state House of Representatives, the largest in the country. Free State activists have campaigned furiously against measures perceived as emblematic of excessive government, like a mandatory seatbelt bill and budget hikes.

Meanwhile, a group of mostly younger Free Staters have decided the best way to keep government in its place is to needle it.

One Free Stater spent 58 days in jail after filming in a courthouse lobby and refusing to give police his name. Behind bars, he preached the message of less government to fellow inmates.

Others have organized a crew to pick up garbage around a Manchester playground with handguns strapped to their hips, to test the right to bear arms. They’ve filmed police officers on patrol and judges on the bench.

They’ve even filed each other’s nails on a public sidewalk, defying state requirements that manicurists be licensed, their cuticles defying the heavy hand of government.

___

At June’s end, they pack Roger’s Campground to breathe deeply of mountain air, camaraderie and a life away from government.

The weekend is a big party. But it is also a statement, based on sober thinking and often rooted in personal experience.

Carla Gericke’s view on government were jolted in 2003. She was a New Yorker then, living in a city two years removed from 9/11 but still deeply unsettled.

She and her husband were out for walk near their apartment when they rounded a corner and ran into a SWAT officer shouldering a submachine gun, a police dog at his side. Gericke’s mind immediately flashed back to her native South Africa and the apartheid-era government troops who used fear to keep the peace.

“There are a lot of people (in the Free State Project) who have come from what I’d call police states,” says Gericke, who relocated to New Hampshire in 2006. “Now we’ve moved to America because it was land of the free. And it’s like, Ha Ha. Suckers!”

Pamela Ean’s misgivings about government were confirmed at work. A high school teacher, Ean was frustrated trying to meet the testing standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. She calls it an illegal power grab by the federal government, and doesn’t see it ending there.

“When you think about it, the federal government is taking over the banking institutions. They’re taking over industry. It’s scary. I mean, what’s next?” asks Ean, who last year ran together with her 19-year-old son for a state legislative seat. They both lost in the primary, but helped unseat the 13-term Republican incumbent.

People have arrived at this ideological destination by different routes. There’s the substantial right-to-bear-arms crowd. Some want drug laws loosened. Others are focused on the economy and see government’s hand as the source of the problems.

Still others get their hackles up over high taxes.

“Once upon a time America was unquestionably the freest nation in the world by a huge margin. That’s not the case anymore and people are starting to realize that,” says Varrin Swearingen, an airline pilot who is president of the group. “The further we go down the path to destruction, particularly economically lately, the more interesting this becomes to more people.”

While more Free Staters lean Republican, there’s little enthusiasm here for George W. Bush, whose administration is viewed as having broken promises to make government smaller. His Democratic replacement, meanwhile, draws backhanded applause.

“I’m glad Obama’s president,” says Lydia Harman, an activist who brings her 6-month-old son to an afternoon talk on state sovereignty. She makes it clear that she and the Democrat don’t agree on a single issue, but that’s not the point: “He wants to centralize everything. … Because of what he’s doing, at the pace that he’s doing it, people are waking up.”

___

With the early morning sun climbing fast, a handful of Free Staters crouch low in a gravel lot to test their resolve on distant targets. Shoulders tense, eyes focused down the length of .22-caliber rifles, they’re trying to take out the “redcoats” with 13 bullets — one for each of the original colonies.

“This is what America is all about — individual freedom, less intrusive government, self-reliance,” says gunsmith Tony Stelik, a political refugee from 1980s’ Communist Poland. “Now it’s rulers are trying to change it.”

Down to her last target, shooter Alicia Lekas nails it, although she seems an unlikely citizen soldier. Lekas makes a living teaching Scottish folk dancing. Her America is embodied in a story of the time a tree fell on a friend’s house near Concord and, instead of waiting for government, neighbors responded with their own chain saws.

She says she can’t imagine shooting a living creature, but she’ll do it if the need arises.

“A bad guy might be the individual crook,” the new rifleman says, “Or it might be somebody who’s taken over government.”

Either way, she’s ready.

Ron Paul becomes flustered while talking about tobacco regulation

bile — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:00:41 +0000

Ron Paul: Current Conditions or Just a Bad Dream

bile — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:35:56 +0000

Barney Frank in 2005: What housing bubble?

bile — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:38:11 +0000

And this is the asshat who heads the finance committee in the House of Representatives. Who needs to drop dead (or at least leave Congress) for Ron Paul to get that position? I need to start praying to the atheist god for a favor.

New Hampshire Senate passes gay marriage bill

bile — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:20:24 +0000

Not only did medical marijuana pass but so did a gay marriage bill:

New Hampshire’s Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage after an amendment was added that prohibits polygamy and marriage of family members, among other measures.

Governor John Lynch has not indicated whether he will veto the bill, which passed in a 13-11 vote and would make New Hampshire the nation’s fifth state where gay marriage is legal. But the Democrat has expressed opposition to the measure.

The bill passed the state’s House of Representatives on March 26 but looked set for near certain defeat in the Senate before the amendment, which appeared to mollify some critics in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

The last-minute changes to the legislation would allow clergy to decline to marry homosexual couples and give couples the freedom to either keep the words “bride” and “groom” on marriage licenses, or simply use the word “spouse” instead.

Because the Senate and House passed separate versions they must resolve their differences before the bill can go to the governor, who in 2007 signed a law recognizing same-sex civil unions, making New Hampshire the fourth state to do so.

Lynch has said the word marriage should be reserved for a traditional heterosexual relationship.

Ideally we’d get rid of government’s intervention with marriage just as we need to with drugs but this is kind of legislation hopefully puts most people on equal footing under the law. Next is polygamy and related persons getting equal treatment.

In other New Hampshire news… the seat belt law was pushed back to be dealt with during another session.

NH Senate approves medical marijuana bill

bile — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:43:18 +0000

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/…

The State Senate approved legislation to make New Hampshire the 14th state to make it legal for chronically or terminally ill to use marijuana.

The 14-10 vote sends the measure to the House of Representatives that approved its own version last month.

It permits a patient or designated caregiver to possess up to two ounces and six plants.

This also makes it legal for patients or caregivers here to get marijuana for free from any patient living in any of the 13 states where it’s now legal to possess it.

House supporters have said they would agree with these changes to the legislation (HB 648) and send it to the desk of Gov. John Lynch.

Lynch has yet to take a position on the measure other than to raise concerns about access to a drug that remains illegal under federal law to possess.

Lets hope Lynch signs it.

House of Representatives passes GIVE act

bile — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:40:15 +0000

http://www.foxnews.com/…

The House of Representatives passed a measure Wednesday that supporters are calling the most sweeping reform of nationally-backed volunteer programs since AmeriCorps. But some opponents are strongly criticizing the legislation, calling it expensive indoctrination and forced advocacy.

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act — sponsored by Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y, and George Miller, D-Calif. — was approved by a 321-105 vote and now goes to the Senate.

The legislation, slated to cost $6 billion over five years, would create 175,000 “new service opportunities” under AmeriCorps, bringing the number of participants in the national volunteer program to 250,000. It would also create additional “corps” to expand the reach of volunteerism into new sectors, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps and Veterans Service Corps, and it expands the National Civilian Community Corps to focus on additional areas like disaster relief and energy conservation.

It is the first time the AmeriCorps program, which was created by President Clinton in 1993, will be reauthorized, and supporters say it will have additional funding to match the renewed interest in national service since President Obama’s election and the acute need for volunteerism and charity in tough economic times.

“National and community service can help make Americans a part of the solution to get our country through this economic crisis. I hope the House and Senate will join us in moving as quickly as possible to help President Obama sign this critical bill into law,” Miller, chairman of the education committee, said after the bill was passed.

But the bill’s opponents — and there are only a few in Congress — say it could cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers,” many of whom could be forced into service since the bill creates a “Congressional Commission on Civic Service.”

The bipartisan commission will be tasked with exploring a number of topics, including “whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the nation.”

“We contribute our time and money under no government coercion on a scale the rest of the world doesn’t emulate and probably can’t imagine,” said Luke Sheahan, contributing editor for the Family Security Foundation. “The idea that government should order its people to perform acts of charity is contrary to the idea of charity and it removes the responsibility for charity from the people to the government, destroying private initiative.”

House committee staff insist the GIVE Act will not change the voluntary nature of service.

Not change the voluntary nature? Note they ignore where the money comes from. Seems reasonable to me that if they claim ownership of 50% of my labor passively through taxation there is no philosophical jump required to claim 100% of my labor or force me to ’serve.’

Looks like this is the first real step to national state slavery. They’ve already got plenty of mandatory service plans ready to impliment. This is really little more than a formality.

H.R. 231: WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.

bile — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:37:52 +0000

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.231:

To require certain warning labels to be placed on video games that are given certain ratings due to violent content. (Introduced in House)

HR 231 IH

111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 231

To require certain warning labels to be placed on video games that are given certain ratings due to violent content.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 7, 2009

Mr. BACA (for himself and Mr. WOLF) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

A BILL

To require certain warning labels to be placed on video games that are given certain ratings due to violent content.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION REGULATION.

(a) Regulation- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission shall promulgate regulations to require the warning label described in subsection (b) to be placed on the packaging of any video game that is rated T (Teen) or higher by the Electronics Software Ratings Board.

(b) Warning Label Content- The warning label required under a regulation issued under subsection (a) shall be placed in a clear and conspicuous location on the packaging of the applicable video game and shall state: `WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.’.

(c) Video Game Defined- As used in this Act the term `video game’ means any product, whether distributed electronically or through a tangible device, consisting of data, programs routines, instructions, applications, symbolic languages, or similar electronic information (collectively referred to as `software’) that controls the operation of a computer or telecommunication device and that enables a user to interact with a computer controlled virtual environment for entertainment purposes.

29 year flashback: Ron Paul in 1979 speaking against the Chrysler bailout

bile — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:42:12 +0000

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

Before the U.S. House of Representatives, November 21, 1979

Although I was not in Congress when either the Lockheed or the New York City bailouts were enacted, I would have opposed both of those actions, as well as the proposed action regarding Chrysler, for many of the same reasons. Let me explain those reasons.

In a nation that is sinking in a sea of debt, it is irresponsible for this Congress to be considering a measure that would add billions to that debt. The expansion of credit is one of the primary forms of inflation. It is not merely inflationary in its effects; it is inflation itself. If this $1.5 billion is created by the federal government, it will ripple and percolate through our banking system, and because of our fractional reserve system, the ultimate growth in the money supply will be far more than $1.5 billion. The standard multiplier is six; that means an infusion of $1.5 billion will eventually result in a $9 billion increase in the money supply. In his testimony before the House Banking Committee, the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Greenspan, stated that

Loan guarantees, insofar as the issue of inflation is concerned, are virtually indistinguishable from on-budget financing, and that the major cause of inflation into this country has been an excessive amount of credit preemption, largely in the area of guarantees, which . . . has created excessive monetary growth and is the base of inflation in the system.

A vote for the Chrysler bailout is, simply put, a vote for further inflation.

Some may argue that the inflation is necessary in order to avoid unemployment, echoing the now repudiated idea of A.W. Phillips, that less inflation means more unemployment and vice versa. The past few years of our experience with inflation and unemployment should convince everyone that high inflation and high unemployment can exist side-by-side. I believe the connection is even closer: Inflation causes unemployment – perhaps not immediately, but in the longer run – and we are now in the longer run of our past inflationary policies. It follows that a vote for aid to Chrysler, because it is a vote for inflation, is also a vote for more unemployment.

Such unemployment may not be obvious, but it will nonetheless be real. One of the things that bothers me most about this entire discussion is that it centers around only what is obvious. Saving 100,000 jobs at Chrysler is obvious; losing 100,000 jobs, one by one around the country is not obvious, but they will nonetheless be lost, should aid to Chrysler pass.

Let me explain why I believe this to be so. If this aid takes the form of loan guarantees rather than direct loans (and, I add parenthetically, that over $1 billion of the New York City loan guarantees has been converted into direct federal loans by the Federal Financing Bank) it will be tantamount to an allocation of credit to Chrysler. That means that Chrysler will get capital that would have gone to other more efficient and more profitable businesses. Because this capital will be diverted by these loan guarantees to a less efficient business, it is highly probable that more jobs will be lost through invisible unemployment than would be were Chrysler to fail. I hasten to point out that this will result in all the increased costs to the government that the proponents of the bailout so loudly declare they wish to avoid. Of course, the costs will not all be centered in Michigan; unemployment checks, welfare checks, food stamp benefits will increase nationwide, in big and small towns, urban centers and rural America. Rather than a few localities suffering noticeably; many will suffer almost invisibly. Workers who have nothing to do with Chrysler will lose their jobs or pay the taxes and higher prices caused by this bailout. The average industrial worker earns half of what the average Chrysler workers earns, and under the UAW contract, the Chrysler workers will be receiving a $500 million pay and benefits rise over the next three years. I have always thought that businesses in trouble cut costs; the Chrysler workers will receive far more in wage increases alone over the next ten years than this bailout amounts to. That (and other facts) would indicate to me that the Chrysler workers have not made any sacrifices and that they hope, through federal aid, to maintain their relatively high wages at the expense of the lower-paid workers in this country. We are being asked to shift the burden from the relatively well-off workers at Chrysler to the relatively worse-off workers throughout America. A Chrysler bailout will be a shifting of burdens that should be borne by those involved.

Do we in Congress have the authority, either moral or constitutional, to cause this suffering? I can find no provision in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make loans or loan guarantees to anyone, let alone to major corporations. Nor have I yet seen a valid moral argument concluding that we, as representatives of all the people, have the right to tax the American people – most of whom receive less in wages and benefits than Chrysler workers – to support a multibillion-dollar corporation. What right have we – and I pose a serious question that deserves an answer – what right have we to force the American taxpayers to risk their money in a business venture which private investors dealing in their own funds have judged to be too risky? Chrysler paper is now classified; that means that any private investor who is handling funds for his depositors, shareholders, or clients may be judged as violating his fiduciary responsibilities should he invest in Chrysler. Don’t we have a trust equally important from the American people? Are we not betraying their trust by voting for a Chrysler bailout? I believe so.

Rather than supporting this patchwork and temporary “solution,” we should be addressing those factors, over which we have control and for which we are responsible, that have brought Chrysler to the brink of bankruptcy. In his testimony before the House Banking Committee, President Iacocca listed three factors that caused the troubles at Chrysler: (1) government regulations; (2) inflation; and (3) the gasoline allocation system that caused last spring’s gasoline shortages. Please note that all three factors are the responsibility of the Congress. We wrote the regulations or gave some bureaucrats a blank check to write the regulations. We are responsible for inflation through our mismanagement of the monetary system. And we empowered the Department of Energy to create a gasoline allocation system that brilliantly achieved what I had heretofore thought impossible: gasoline shortages in Houston, the oil capital of the United States.

It is our responsibility to diagnose the Chrysler disease accurately. Instead, we are acting like political quacks, prescribing potions to treat symptoms, while the cause of those symptoms rages on unabated. Chrysler is not unique; it is merely the prototype, the harbinger, of crises to come. Dr. Greenspan testified that the most likely sequence of events, in his view, would be federal loan guarantees followed by a Chrysler failure anyway. Unless the disease is correctly diagnosed, the potions we prescribe will kill the patient.

I would urge this Committee and the whole Senate to act with more deliberation than the House has acted. This form of welfare for corporations must end. Just because it was extended to Lockheed does not mean that it should be extended to Chrysler. Bad precedents should not be followed, and these precedents are particularly bad. Because Lockheed, a large corporation, New York City, the largest city, and now Chrysler, the tenth largest corporation in the country, are the three institutions to which aid has been or will be extended, one can conclude that there is an obvious pattern of discrimination in the action of this Congress.

Last year there were 200,000 bankruptcies in this country, according to U.S. News & World Report. Yet we have selected only the largest for our aid. This is discrimination of the crassest sort. We ignore the smaller victims of this government’s policies simply because they are small. Only the largest, those with the most clout, the most pull, get our attention. This aristocracy of pull is morally indefensible. What answer can be given to the small businessman driven into bankruptcy by government regulations when he asks: “You bailed out Chrysler, why not me?” No justification can be given for this discrimination between the powerful and the powerless, the big and the small.

It is an axiom of our legal system that all citizens are to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. That axiom is violated daily by our tax laws, and now by this proposed corporate welfare plan for Chrysler. Apparently some citizens are more equal than others. That is a notion I reject, and I hope you do, too. I urge you to reject this proposal for all the reasons I have stated.

NYTimes: Ron Paul answers your questions, Part 2

bile — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:29:36 +0000

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/…

First batch here.

Here is the second. Like the first batch, they are well-considered and interesting throughout; they will surely make many readers continue to wish fervently for a Paul presidency.

Thanks again to Rep. Paul for his time and insights, and to all of you for the good questions.

Q: What is the first thing the country should do about its monetary policy?

A: We should immediately audit the Federal Reserve. I am the ranking member of the Monetary Policy subcommittee in the U.S. Congress, yet I can get more information about the internal workings of the C.I.A. than I can about our central bank. This secrecy is fundamentally wrong, and I believe that people from all over the ideological political spectrum can agree on that.

Bloomberg News this month has gone to court compel the Fed to disclose securities the central bank is accepting on behalf of American taxpayers as collateral for trillions of dollars of loans to banks. Expanding transparency is critical and could be done very quickly.

Q: What are your expectations for the next four years under an Obama administration? How might President Obama’s interventionist economic policies impact our lives?

A: Unfortunately, I don’t expect many good things. I do expect a lot of spending and even more debt. To really cut spending and balance our budget, we need to change foreign policy. Obama’s rhetoric on foreign policy is better than what we have gotten recently, but don’t expect any real change.

He may be more likely to wind things down in Iraq, but he’s still planning on keeping troops there for a least 16 more months. He wants money for Georgia and more troops in Afghanistan. He isn’t going to bring home our 30,000 troops from Korea or our 50,000 soldiers in Germany, and he won’t close any of our 700 foreign bases. At the same time, he is planning even bigger spending here at home. I hope I’m wrong, but if this spending and debt continue, the dollar is going to crash and we will see the middle class in this country take a grave hit.

Q: Do you deny global warming? Is Obama right to invest money in green technology? If you don’t deny it, and don’t think Obama is right, what is your solution?

A: I try to look at global warming the same way I look at all other serious issues: as objectively and open-minded as possible. There is clear evidence that the temperatures in some parts of the globe are rising, but temperatures are cooling in other parts. The average surface temperature had risen for several decades, but it fell back substantially in the past few years.

Clearly there is something afoot. The question is: Is the upward fluctuation in temperature man-made or part of a natural phenomenon. Geological records indicate that in the 12th century, Earth experienced a warming period during which Greenland was literally green and served as rich farmland for Nordic peoples. There was then a mini ice age, the polar ice caps grew, and the once-thriving population of Greenland was virtually wiped out.

It is clear that the earth experiences natural cycles in temperature. However, science shows that human activity probably does play a role in stimulating the current fluctuations.

The question is: how much? Rather than taking a “sky is falling” approach, I think there are common-sense steps we can take to cut emissions and preserve our environment. I am, after all, a conservative and seek to conserve not just American traditions and our Constitution, but our natural resources as well.

We should start by ending subsidies for oil companies. And we should never, ever go to war to protect our perceived oil interests. If oil were allowed to rise to its natural price, there would be tremendous market incentives to find alternate sources of energy. At the same time, I can’t support government “investment” in alternative sources either, for this is not investment at all.

Government cannot invest, it can only redistribute resources. Just look at the mess government created with ethanol. Congress decided that we needed more biofuels, and the best choice was ethanol from corn. So we subsidized corn farmers at the expense of others, and investment in other types of renewables was crowded out.

Now it turns out that corn ethanol is inefficient, and it actually takes more energy to produce the fuel than you get when you burn it. The most efficient ethanol may come from hemp, but hemp production is illegal and there has been little progress on hemp ethanol. And on top of that, corn is now going into our gas tanks instead of onto our tables or feeding our livestock or dairy cows; so food prices have been driven up. This is what happens when we allow government to make choices instead of the market; I hope we avoid those mistakes moving forward.

Q: Will you run for a leadership position in the House Republican caucus?

A: I have no plans to do so. I don’t cut deals and trade votes, which is exactly what a role like that requires.

Q: What are your thoughts on abolishing America’s income tax and switching over to a consumption tax such as the fair tax?

A: I want to abolish the income tax, but I don’t want to replace it with anything. About 45 percent of all federal revenue comes from the personal income tax. That means that about 55 percent — over half of all revenue — comes from other sources, like excise taxes, fees, and corporate taxes.

We could eliminate the income tax, replace it with nothing, and still fund the same level of big government we had in the late 1990’s. We don’t need to “replace” the income tax at all. I see a consumption tax as being a little better than the personal income tax, and I would vote for the Fair-Tax if it came up in the House of Representatives, but it is not my goal. We can do better.

Q: Did former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan really believe in free markets or did he fail to practice what he preached?

A: In my book The Revolution: A Manifesto I talk about an encounter I had with Greenspan when he was still Fed chairman. I had come across an old Objectivist newsletter Greenspan had written in the 1960’s supporting a real gold standard. It was great stuff!

At a gathering we both attended, I presented the booklet and asked if he still believed in its subject. He said he remembered the piece and still believed every word. I can’t profess to know what is in Mr. Greenspan’s heart, but his own words lead me to believe that he knew better than to pursue the policies he did.

Q: What policies should have been put into place in 1932 to stimulate the economy instead of the confiscation of monetary gold?

A: A trust in free markets and sound money would have made the 1930’s much less rough. Inflation caused the Depression, and the big government policies of Roosevelt exacerbated the problem. Murray Rothbard wrote a masterpiece on the cause of the 1929 crash and the Great Depression, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a deep interest who wants to read the authoritative view.

Q: Is there any part of the Republican Party reaching out to you? At what point do we dump the G.O.P. and leave it for dead?

A: The leadership in the House of Representatives and at the N.R.C.C. has been cordial, and I as a ranking subcommittee member am myself in leadership. Other national leadership bodies largely ignore me.

Where I get the most attention, though, is from rank-and-file members. Dozens of Republican congressmen from across the country asked me for money and support in November’s election. I was happy to support and contribute to several deserving individuals through my Liberty PAC.

As far as quitting or staying with the Republicans, everyone will have to make up his or her own mind. There can be value in choosing either path. I myself have no plans to leave the G.O.P.

Q: Why is it that, even in the midst of unimaginable deficits and an economic crisis, both our enormous military and our policy of drug prohibition remain sacrosanct? Do you think this reflects actual democratic opinion, or is it the work of powerful, but numerically small interest groups?

A: I think that it might reflect democratic opinion, but only because each issue has been demagogued.

Take military spending. I believe in a strong national defense. I want our troops here, defending our territory; I want nuclear submarines and an adequate arsenal of weapons that can repeal any conceivable attack. What I don’t want to do is spend a trillion dollars a year maintaining an empire.

Today, our troops are in 130 countries. We have 700 foreign bases. We can spend far less and have a stronger national defense than we do right now. But if you question our foreign policy, you are branded as un-American. And we’re told that if we don’t “fight them over there, we’ll fight them over here.” That’s absurd.

On your second example, the federal war on drugs has proven costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime. But if you question policy, you are accused of being pro-drug. That is preposterous. As a physician, father, and grandfather, I abhor drugs. I just know that there is a better way — through local laws, communities, churches, and families — to combat the very serious problem of drug abuse than a massive federal-government bureaucracy.

There are certainly some powerful special interests that benefit from our flawed foreign and drug policies. Now, do I think they openly conspire together to deceive and manipulate? No I don’t. The system is much to complicated to think a few puppet masters control the strings. But I do think we’d be a lot better off if we listened to our founding fathers and obeyed the Constitution. The founders would never have formed a D.E.A., and they would be horrified if they saw our troops spread thin around the globe.

Q: What do you think were your biggest mistakes in the primary race, and what would you now do differently?

A: I was always pessimistic and never thought we would get to where we did. My regret is that we couldn’t see how quickly things would grow and were not adequately prepared for the explosion in money and support when they came. There are dozens, hundreds of things we could have done better, but we all worked hard and did our best. And I know we built something that will only get stronger in the years to come.