I accept no campaign contributions. I am not likely to get enough to make that much difference anyway; and for as little as I could get, it would not be worth the hassle of dealing with the campaign finance reporting rules of the State of California.
As it is, even though in principle all I have to do is file a single Form, that I expect to spend less than $1000 in the campaign, the State has accused me in every single election (1994, 1996, 1998, & 2000) of not doing it the right way (ever heard of "the right way, the wrong way, and the Army's way"?). For instance, even if the Form is filed with the County, which notifies the State of my name, address, party, phone number, etc., it is too much for the County to notify the State about the Form. Instead the very same Form must be filed, in duplicate (no copiers there, I guess), with the State. Similarly, such forms are only good for one calendar year. So, if the election cycle straddles years, as happened recently, when it was necessary to qualify for the March 2000 primary back in 1999, then the very same Form must be filed with the State (in duplicate) all over again, even though this tells the State absolutely nothing they didn't know already. God knows what bureaucratic regulations I would violate, and what $100+ fines a day I would incur, if I actually tried raising money!
All this persuades me, of course, that "campaign finance reform" is simply a means of inhibiting opposition to the entrenched powers and Parties (Demopublicans). As in so many "reforms" by the statists, rules that are supposedly invented to prevent the "powerful" from controlling events end up getting used, with the full force of the law, against those who are very far from powerful, and who of course cannot hire the lawyers, accountants, and staff to deal with regulations (supposedly) aimed at those who do have the lawyers, accountants, and staff already. By these means, the powerful fool the voters that they are protected against them, when the powerful are themselves protected, since they are used to dealing with all the hassle that they create themselves!
So all you "campaign finance reform" zealots: Here's your chance. I don't get money from anyone, so if you really believe in the corrupting effects of campaign contributions, I'm your guy! But you're not going to vote for me, are you? You want politicians who promise you free stuff! You're in on the deception! YOU are the lying, thieving, creeps who want to deceive the voters!
He, the Democrats, and the feminists all think that Clinton is too important (building socialism) to be subject to the laws that they have passed just to ruin their enemies. Thus, Republican Bob Packwood was driven from office, for fondling secretaries, but not Dan Inouye, who was accused of rape by his hairdresser, or Ted Kennedy, who left a young woman to drown in his car. But the Democrats like them! When these hypocrites say that the charges against Clinton are "only about sex," everyone should respond to them that the charges against Clinton are about sex only because the sexual harassment laws
are about sex.
And they wrote those laws.
Sadly, even though Clinton was impeached and tried for perjury and obstruction of justice, after the November 3, 1998 election and all the favorable opinion polls (which encouraged the Democrats and frightened the Republicans), Clinton was safe from conviction and removal from office by the Senate. Not a single lockstep, braindead Democrat voted for conviction. Even Robert Byrd, who admitted on television that Clinton was certainly guilty of the charges, said that for other reasons (raisons d'état, presumably) he could not vote for removal. But there is no limit to the dishonesty of Democrats in protecting their own. It is hard to imagine a Democrat acting with the same integrity as Barry Goldwater, who told Nixon in 1974 that he would have to resign. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (or Byrd) has the seniority and stature equivalent to Goldwater, and he is very definitely no friend of Clinton, but he said weeks in advance that Clinton should not be removed.
One thing for sure: Bob Packwood should run for the Senate again, now that it is clear that what he did was "only about sex."
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. (John 3:20)
Democrats want your money!
Democrats want your money. Before Democrats came to dominate American politics in 1932, they had always been the party of local political machines and corrupt political patronage. They still operate the same way. They want your money to buy off their constituencies and make people dependent on government (them) for the necessities of life. They will say that they want to end poverty, provide health care, etc.; but poverty declined from 30% to 13% of Americans between 1950 and 1965. Since then, after the Democrats have spent something like five trillian dollars (estimates vary), the poverty level is virtually the same as it was in 1965! They have perpetuated poverty.
And don't let anyone tell you that the Vietnam War drew off all the money that was needed for the War on Poverty. The Vietnam War was winding down as the War on Poverty was gearing up, and there was no lack of money. Don't let anyone tell you that we need a Marshall Plan for the cities. American cities, by this point, have suffered from many Marshall Plans, and all it has done is destroy them. Don't let anyone tell you that Ronald Reagan took away all the money we needed to end poverty. The Federal budget ballooned under Reagan, and most of the increases went to social spending and entitlements, including public housing. The Democrats still controlled Congress under Reagan, and he went along with most of their spending.
Everything the Democrats do gives them more power, you less, and does not help one bit the things they claim to be concerned about, unless being kept in poverty on the public dole is a life you prefer. Democrats cannot give any economic justification for their programs (like nationalizing health care) without parroting now discredited socialistic clichés. Democrats still love their glory day gimmicks of the New Deal, which only served to perpetuate the Great Depression, not end it. Democrats cannot acknowledge the tax-cut driven prosperity of the 20's, 60's, and 80's, even when the tax cuts of the 60's were proposed by John F. Kennedy and implemented by Lyndon Johnson! John Kenneth Galbraith, who advised John Kennedy not to cut taxes, and who has admitted that is is a socialist, still represents mainstream Democrat, and news media, opinion.
Republicans want your rights. Where Democrats believe in the power of government to take from the rich and give to the poor, Republicans believe in the power of government to make you virtuous. Although Republicans properly complain about "social engineering" when the Democrats try it to produce "equitable distribution of income" and other socialistic goals, Republicans are equally willing to use social engineering for their own goals of producing the virtuous and God-fearing normalcy that Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, and Bill Bennett want. Although Republicans properly accuse the Democrats of seeking unconstitutional power for the Federal Government when the Democrats want it to spend more money and control businesses and private property, the Republicans also seek unconstitutional Federal power for their "law and order" issues: They see nothing wrong with voiding the Bill of Rights through unconstitutional searches, seizures, and confiscations in the pursuit of their unconstitutional moralistic drug prohibitions.
Although Republicans properly accuse the Democrats, and the courts, of completely dismissing the 10th Amendment, which limits Federal power, Republicans completely dismiss the 9th Amendment, which states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." When it comes to the right to privacy, which has been used to strike down laws about sexual practices, birth control, and abortion, Republicans consistently "deny" and "disparage" that right because it is not enumerated in the Constitution. Republicans believe that private virtue is the foundation of private success and achievement. If that is true (which it is), why do they need coercive and draconian laws to enforce private virtue? If the wages of sin is death, or the wages of vice is failure, then the most edifying lesson for all is to see the failures happen, not to prevent them (and many other innocent or useful pastimes) from happening.
Against the IRS, FDA, DEA, INS, BATF, FCC, SEC, EPA, EEOC, OSHA, HUD, RTC, USDA, NEH, PBS, NPR, AMA, NEA, etc.
For the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, Seventh Amendment, Eighth Amendment, Ninth Amendment, Tenth Amendment, Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, and Nineteenth Amendment
Against Censorship, the War on Drugs, the Gun Grabbers, the Welfare State, Draft Registration, Smog Check II, Mandatory Auto Insurance, Socialized Medicine, Protective Tariffs, Minimum Wage, Political Correctness, Deficit Spending, "Affirmative Action" Quotas, Anti-Smoking Zealots, "Public" Housing, Seizure & Forfeiture Laws, Federal Mandates, Seat Belt & Motorcycle Helmet Laws, "Administrative" Law, Unaccountable Judges & Bureaucrats, Closed or Agency Shop, Mandatory Minimums, No Knock Entry, Entitlements, and Professional Politicians
Sadly, this will be the beginning of an endless and hopeless process, all based on false premises. HMO's only exist in large numbers in the first place because, in the early 70's, it was already obvious that Medicare was costing a lot more than expected. The federal government (the Nixon administration) came up with the bright idea to limit costs through "Health Maintenance Organizations." They would function to keep people healthier by "maintaining" health, rather than just treating disease, thereby eliminating much expense, and so keeping costs down. This was an attractive theory, but it was a thin, untested reed upon which to base hopes for containing Medicare expenses. As it happened, it did not contain costs. The "health maintenance" theory really didn't pan out; and in fact HMO's could limit costs only in the way that the British National Health service or the Canadian medical system could limits costs: by delaying care, limiting care, or refusing to pay for what some bureaucrat regarded as "unnecessary" care. This angered people, who naturally blamed the HMO's or the insurance companies rather than the true culprit: the federal government and Medicare.
Now Medicare is merrily headed for bankruptcy (much sooner than Social Security), and it should be obvious what the original problem was. Like all forms of socialism, the original promise of Medicare was that it would pay for everything. After costs balloon far beyond expectations, it becomes obvious that the original promise turns out to be impossible, so some method of rationing care must be put in place. In the free market, rationing occurs because people are unable to pay and goods or services do not get sold. The incentive for vendors of the goods or services, then, is to cut prices so that a greater volume of goods and services can be sold. This dynamic was dramatically illustrated in the 80's and 90's in the computer industry, when computers that would have cost millions of dollars in the 60's, and taken up a whole room, now cost around $2000 ($444 in 1967 dollars) and fit on a desktop, or laptop. People, however, are sometimes morally offended at the operation of this system when it comes to medical care, since it means that some people may go untreated because they can't pay. First of all, this was not necessarily the case in the past, since a large part of the medical system has always been charitable hospitals, whose business was to treat those otherwise unable to afford medical care (the fasting growing hospital system in the United States, according to ABC news on July 22, 1998, is the Roman Catholic hospital system--whose only drawback for many people is that they won't do abortions or dispense birth control). On the other hand, the operation of market health care (such as it was under the sanctioned monopoly of the AMA) was then able to do what the market did to other necessities of life--food, clothing, housing--and, in the long run, make things affordable for everyone that previously were only privileges of the rich.
However, today, since many people think that there is a right to health care, and that the government should simply provide it to everyone, not just (in the place of charities) to the poor, they seem to think that both charities and the market should be swept away and replaced with some kind of nationalized, "single payer" medicine, like Canada or Britain. Unfortunately, this would just produce on a large scale everything everyone hates about HMO's on a small scale. In a socialized economy, which is what medicine is in Canada and Britain, rationing is accomplished by just saying no. When the medical budget runs out, that's it (and both Canada and Medicare now prohibit patients from buying their own treatment--it might be "unnecessary"). This is why Canada has been closing hospitals. This is why provinces like Quebec have limited how much doctors can make in a year: When they reach their limit, many simply go on vacation. That is why the Montreal Gazette reported on May 13, 1998 ("Doctors teed off, With salary caps, MDs can book off or work for free"), that the place to find your doctor might be on the golf course. One doctor reported taking 18 weeks of vacation (that's four and a half months!) in a year. Nevertheless, Canadians, who think they are getting something for nothing (ha, ha, ha), are generally satisfied with their health care.
Americans could fall for the same foolishness. The simple rule is this: If you like your HMO, you'll love socialized medicine. The real solution then, is to go back and remove the socialism at its source, which means Medicare. Something is going to have to be done anyway, as I have noted, since the system will be bankrupt in five years or so, and the baby boomers aren't even all that old yet. Soon, when they expect everything to be paid for, the Gen-X'ers will be the ones expected to pay! Fat chance! HMO's don't have to be abolished. After all, there were some systems rather like HMO's already, like Kaiser Permanente, which some people evidently liked a lot. But the federal government needs to stop trying to drive people and doctors into HMO's, and insurance companies need to realize that HMO's are not effective means of limiting costs, especially after "patients' bills of rights" will add massive expense through mandated treatments and benefits. The public, in turn, needs to realize that the best medical system will be a fee-for-service relationship with individual, independent physicians--the very thing the federal government is now trying to destroy. The family doctor, not the family "medical plan" or the family HMO, was the right idea all along.
HMO's are then an object lesson is socialist economics. Everything bad about them is just an illustration of the evils of socialism. This should be a lesson taken to heart by us all.
In the 60's, however, Jesse Unruh persuaded someone (the voters?) that full-time legislators would be more "professional," and that this would be better for the State. What it has done instead is removed legislators from the effects of their own laws, given them every reason to pass laws that will make their own status in the legislature more secure, and enabled them to hang out, with their expense accounts, with all the full-time, professional lobbyists who followed them to Sacramento. This is the creation of a self-interested political class. They have done little or nothing more than in the past for the sake of the voters. They neither limited property taxes (Proposition 13) nor abolished preferential policies (Proposition 209). We do not need these kind of "professionals."
"Public places" that are private businesses are still private property. If people assemble there, for any purpose, they are voluntarily on private property. If the State Health Nazis want to prohibit smoking because they think that second-hand smoke is bad for people, they must at least observe the Fifth Amendment rule that "private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation."
The State could take its tobacco tax money and, instead of running stupid and offensive commercials against smoking, they could retrain or job-hunt for people who don't think they will be able to find a job were smoking isn't allowed.
Indeed, the State propaganda commercials against smoking, besides ordinary misdirection away from property rights and freedom to what is "bad for us," often are incoherent to a comical extent. One commercial says that second-hand smoke is more dangerous for non-smokers because they are not breathing the smoke through cigarette filters. This must mean that smokers don't breath the air when they are not inhaling cigarettes! How extraordinary! Smoking cigarettes means you don't have to breath otherwise! Another commerical, no longer run, asserts that invisible second-hand smoke, creeping through the air-conditioning system of a building, can still kill. This makes cigarette smoke sound more like nerve gas than like tobacco. Give me a break.
Of course, the whole attack on tobacco is pure racism. Tobacco was one of the major contributions of American Indians to world civilization. The Health Nazis thus cannot honestly deny their hatred of the sacred things of Native Americans!
In the overall decline in union membership in the United States, outside the public sector, the closed shop has become a dinosaur of anti-capitalist propaganda. Sovietization is not how life gets better for working people. It is time to end this remnant of Stalinist lies.
Now they have been arresting sick people, sometimes even paralyzed people in wheelchairs, and have been putting them in jail for using or growing marijuana. These arrests are a crime against humanity, and drug agents actually should be prosecuted as war criminals in a Nuremburg-like proceeding.
Until we can do that, the State of California must at least protect its citizens. Proposition 215 legalized marijuana for medical uses. It is the moral and legal duty of all representatives of the State of California, from the Governor down to every cop on patrol, to protect the people of California from the efforts of federal agents to commit their acts of tyranny, their crimes against humanity, against them.
If there is divine justice, hopefully they will someday meet divine retribution. Meanwhile, we can see to it that AIDS stops spreading among drug users. All we need to do is provide clean needles, things that should never have been "controlled" or made illegal in the first place. People with drug habits may have been fools, but they are not evil and do not deserve to die.
When police departments were introduced in the United States and Britain, it was illegal for the police to be armed. This should still be the case, though of course it is not. The only armed force in a county should be the posse comitatus, i.e. the armed force of the citizens under the Sheriff. Each neighborhood should have a body of citizens who are the equivalent of reserve sheriff's deputies. Before the existence of police departments, such a body would constitute the Watch of the neighborhood. Unarmed urban police departments, if they needed to use force, would raise the Alarm and call out the Watch.
Instead of having the equivalent of an army of occupation, every citizen should be armed, and the primary defense of every neighborhood should be in the hands of its citizens. People who are terrorized by gangsters, and who may distrust the police anyway, should not have to wait for outside help to rid themselves of their plague. If every homeowner is turned out just once by the local Watch to chase out, capture, or shoot some punk gang-bangers, the gangsters would never return. Instead, today the gangsters often think it is their neighborhood, even while they terrorize all the honest citizens in it; and people cower in their own homes, while bullets may be flying between the gangsters.
This is real "neighborhood policing." Like modern volunteer firemen, citizens on the Watch can now have beepers to call them out.
The best way to cut back government is to cut it off at the root, and the root is money. Nor is there a better source of money, nor a source more intrusive into private affairs, than the income tax.
Take away their money, and politicians may decide to go into some other line of work where they can continue dealing with money in the same way....like the Mafia.
This may or may not be necessary, but it has now become a means of trying to punish people for unrelated offenses by revoking the licenses. The feds, as part of the disgraceful "war on drugs," have blackmailed the State into suspending driver's licenses for marijuana offenses. It is now also common to suspend the professional licenses of "deadbeat dads," evidently on the basis of the reasoning that such men will be better able to provide child support if they are unable to work at their jobs--which makes about as much sense as imprisoning debtors (oh, but they're doing that too for "deadbeat dads," come to think of it).
This is all part of the lust for absolute power on the part of politicians, the idea that "any means necessary" are appropriate for enforcing unjust or unworkable laws. This is despicable. If licensing is legitimate, it is only for the sake of ensuring and demonstrating competence, not to provide a stick to beat people over the head with about something else.
Since political indoctrination is the real purpose, it is no surprise that children emerge unable to read or write or do math, unable to fine the United States on the map of the world, or ignorant of what the Civil War was. But they know all about ecology and racism, and how evil America was ruining lives with McCarthyism while Joe Stalin was building a classless society.
The monopoly must be broken. It can be done in stages. First, break up the big districts that have centralized control into an ideological elite of administrators and teachers union officials. Then use vouchers to give people an alternative to the public schools altogether. Then, when many more private schools and flourishing, privatize the remaining public schools.
In 1996, 28 percent of drivers in California were uninsured. That is more than one out of four drivers, an astounding percentage. By requiring insurance for registration and increasing penalties, in 1999 the percentage is down to 22; but that is still more than one ouf of every five drivers. Clearly, large numbers of Californias will not or cannot purchase auto insurance, whatever the threats.
All that someone with insurance needs to do is get "uninsured motorist" insurance. This is commonly provided and purchased anyway, since, as a matter of fact, many drivers don't have insurance.
Part of the motivation of mandatory insurance may be to drive poor people out of their cars and into the wonderful convenience of public transportation. This is supposed to be ecologically preferable--though the times I've been caught behind a fume-spewing bus in traffic, it didn't seem very ecological to me.
In any case, people who can't afford insurance, just can't afford insurance. They also need to get around. They should not be criminalized for being poor. Mandatory auto insurance should be abolished.
Teaching Math in 1955 Teaching Math in 1965 Teaching Math in 1975 Teaching Math in 1985 Teaching Math in 1995
The Libertarian Party, although it is the third largest party in the country (and so the largest "third" party), is not the third largest party in California.
Republicans want your rights!
Kelley L. Ross
For and Against!
Kelley L. Ross
What do we do about those damn HMO's?!
It is becoming a staple of contemporary social and political humor, and horror, that HMO's are outrageous and despicable. A solution for this is often thought to be, at both State and federal levels, by both Republicans and Democrats, a "Patients' Bill of Rights" that will require HMO's to do certain things, and forbid them to do, or not do, others.
Kelley L. Ross
Return to a Part-Time Legislature!
California, like most States, used to have a part-time legislature, which meant that politicians had to go home for most of the year and earn a living in some honest fashion. In some States, the legislature only meets for five months. In Texas, the legislature only meets for five months every two years!
Repeal the Smoking Ban!
If people don't want to be around smokers, they don't have to go into bars or other private businesses where there is smoking. If they don't want to work around smokers, they should organize their fellow non-smoking workers to strike, or should work someplace else.
We Need a Right to Work Law!
Union closed and "agency" shops force people to join unions and to pay union dues against their will. Federal law allows a majority vote of workers at a company at some time in the past to almost perpetually lock a company into a closed shop--unless the State has a "right to work" law, which prohibits such forced union membership.
Protect Medical Marijuana Patients and Growers from the Federal Drug Gestapo!
The United States now has a GESTAPO. This is a word that was originally short for the "Secret [but not so secret] State Police" (Geheime Staatspolizei) of Nazi Germany. We have just such a State Police in the constellation of federal "law enforcement" agencies: the FBI, BATF, DEA, etc. In the Constitution, there was never supposed to be a federal police force. But we have one, and it enforces a web of unconstitutional federal laws, chief among which are the drug laws.
Needle Exchange to Prevent the Spread of HIV!
It is the moral sickness of posturing politicians to think that people with intravenous drug habits deserve to die from AIDS, and that it is better for them to die than that clean needles should be provided for them.
Neighborhood Watch Should Become a True Watch, with Armed Citizens Policing Their Own Neighborhoods!
In a free society, the citizens are armed and the police are disarmed. In a police state, the police are armed and the citizens are disarmed. Make no mistake about it: Politicians and professors who are advocates of "gun control" are partisans of a Police State. They want American to be more like Germany, not like America. This includes so-called "liberals" like Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein, who has proposed several such police state measures, like a national identity card.
Abolish the State Income Tax!
The less tax money the politicians have, the less corruption and the less in the way of socialist pipe-dreams there will be.
Driving and Professional Licenses Should Not Be Suspended for Unrelated Offenses!
The rationale of licensing is that we need to know that people can do what they are supposed to do, whether it is driving or being a doctor.
Decentralize, then Privatize Public Education!
Public schools are artifacts of the Soviet Union. They represent the same urge for state control and state propaganda as in that "Evil Empire." Now it has become even worse than "state" propaganda, since the propaganda tends to be just that of the Democratic Party, often simply anti-American.
No Seatbelt or Helmet Laws!
Whether people wear seat belts or motorcycle helmets is their own business. If they get injured by not wearing them, hopefully they will have insurance, but it is certainly not public responsibility to take care of them. This just needs to be announced one day. If some motorcycle rider without helmet or insurance lands on his head the next day, hopefully there will be a charitable hospital that will take him in. But then, thanks to Medicare, HMO's, and the other moves towards socialized medicine, there don't seem to be as many charitable or religious hospitals anymore as there used to be.
Abolish Mandatory Auto Insurance!
When people are poor, it means they don't have much money. Sometimes, they can afford a car to get to work but can't afford insurance. It would be bad enough for them if they were liable in an accident, but the State for many years has made them criminals as well, just for not having insurance. In effect, this has criminalized poverty.
The Progress of Math Education
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M". The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" for profits?
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. Her cost of production is $80 and her profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. How do
you feel about this way of making a living by destroying nature? Topic for class participation after answering the question: Everyone take on the roles of the forest birds, squirrels, and trees and express how they would feel as the logger cuts down the trees. There are no wrong answers.
California Voter Registration by Party
Nevertheless, it fields the largest number of third party candidates, has been growing faster than any party, and it drew the largest number of third party votes in the November 1998 election. In the last figures on registration, the "Natural Law" Party showed strong growth, but this did not make up for absolute losses that it has suffered since 1998, as can be seen by comparison with the chart for 1998 below. The Natural Law Party is actually the party of Transcendental Meditation Guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The party's candidates conceal this connection as much as possible, though their actual political program is basically to teach everyone Transcendental Meditation (at public expense). The "American Independent" Party, still the largest "third" party in California, is the descendant of George Wallace's third party campaigns. It is thus, to say the least, very conservative; but many voters who register with it may simply think they are registering "independent." The Reform Party, Ross Perot's 
party, has survived Ross Perot, thanks to Jesse Ventura, the colorful former wrestler and now Governor of Minnesota, but just what it stands for has recently been confused by both Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump joining it. Ventura sounds like a Libertarian, Buchanan like George Wallace, and Trump like a John McCain Republican. How this will be all reconciled is going to be interesting. The Peace and Freedom Party, a survivor of the 60's, has now dropped off the ballot.
Top Ten Bumper Stickers in Washington, D.C.