Attempting to Have His Cake and Eat it Too

"When Jeremy Dyer was selected to represent his province because of his human rights art, he had no idea he'd find himself in line to shake Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hand.

The notion was an affront to Dyer, an activist who vehemently disagrees with many of Harper's policies."

Well, isn't that special.

To put this in perspective...

This young a--, activist was chosen to take a trip covering almost 3000km on the government's dime. He was put up in a hotel, at taxpayer expense and fed at government expense for the chance to get national exposure (read free publicity) for his artwork and his cause in a National (Government run) museum and when the Prime Minister shows up for the money shot - the handshake - this ungrateful little snot is rude enough to refuse to, to turn a phrase - dance with the one what brought him?

Perhaps if young Jeremy was so opposed to the government's policies he should have discovered the backbone to stand for his principles before he became the governments artistic whore, not after.

Later, talking with reporters about being asked to remove himself from the reception line, which he did, Mrs. Dyer's little boy commented that “That was the breaking point — when I was suppressed for my beliefs.”

Suppressed?! This mooching scab of an "artist" was suppressed? How? Was it the free flight, food and accommodation? The national exposure? The support of the cause of human rights as demonstrated by the PM and the government he is so quick to disrespect?

I hope that Jeremy Dyer learns a lesson from this which is best summed up by another marvellous saying, one about laying down with dogs.

Oh, I also hope that the government is paying attention. Its lesson is that Jeremy Dyer is a capricious, churlish, child and should never be given an opportunity like that ever again.

Time to Pay Up

UPDATE: Second Firm Pulls out of Greece , and the Greeks continue to evade reality...

This is the end of the road for socialized medicine.

Medicine just like bread, automobiles and bowling balls cost a certain amount to produce. That is a fact. It is not a construct of a company or a secret cabal of evil capitalists perpetrating a "brutal blackmail".

It is also not "a violation of corporate social responsibility" the company would not exist, there would be no insulin to buy, and no one to produce it if they (the company) were to ignore the realities of what it takes to produce this or any other product.

It is simply a matter of reality, things cost money, and nothing can be produced for free. Nothing can be supplied indefinitely at a loss. Yes, you might be able to supply it for a time at a loss but as less money comes in less product is produced and soon there is nothing and no company to produce it.

The decree by the Greek government that all medicine prices shall be cut by 25% (so that the government can continue to supply those medicines through the health care system) is a command divorced of reality.

There is a simple solution. Return the portion of taxes that each Greek pays into the health care scheme and allow then to pay for their own medicine at the market rate.

The Greek Government is not the only one to blame for this though. The Greeks have themselves as individuals to blame. Every time they demanded that their government give them more for less, every time they allowed another government program to supply for them something that they should have bought themselves. Every time they asked for more pay and less work, every demand to feather their social safety net led to this.

Reality can not be ignored forever, you may survive for a time while evading it but sooner or later its time to pay up.

Greece's bill is due.

The End of The Beginning of the End

"This really is Act V of the fiscal welfare state, in which monetary policy becomes the shameless handmaiden of fiscal policy in order to sustain an unsustainable kind of riskless society with massive benefits for everyone paid for by a few."

Read the whole thing.

So close...

And yet so far.

This article in the National post begins with a precise and correct statement of principle.

"If you have a language, heritage or sexual orientation you would like to celebrate, good for you. This is Canada: Feel free to stage a march, parade or festival in honour of whatever makes you proud. But, please, do it on your own dime."

but then they go and ruin it by adding...

"As Toronto's Pride Parade and several recent Sikh events have demonstrated, public funds should not be used to underwrite controversial gatherings for niche communities."

Do you see the problem?

It's not that these parades "underwrite controversial gatherings for niche communities." it's the theft of public funds to support any such event. Whether it be the Molson Indy or a boy scouts parade, if there isn't enough voluntary or corporate support in the community then there is no damn way that a government, any government ought to be able to use taxes to put on a show.

This is a fine example of the waste in our public finances. We have millions of dollars of debt at the municipal level, tens of billions of debt at the provincial level and hundreds of billions at the federal level and we are throwing parties?

I don't know about you but when I find myself a little short at the end of a month I don't decide to pay for a friend's kegger.

Running out of other People's Money

Margaret Thatcher once famously quipped that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend.

Greece is in the middle of proving that the people who support the socialist ideal will turn on the government they created as soon as that eventuality comes to fruition.

Say No to "Fair Trade"

I've always avoided "fair trade" products, equating them with collectivism and anti-industrialists, this article proves my assumptions correct.

Capitalism and freedom remain the best and surest road to prosperity.

H/T Diana at Noodlefood

The Third World

In our backyard.

Aside from the issue of national sovereignty there is no discernible difference between the cleptocratic nature of many "First Nations" and many of the banana republics and their theiving leaders in Central Africa.

It's interesting that the people on the reserves don't get fired up over this, but hey... it's not like its their money anyway is it? They just wait and hope when its time to take their turn they can have a chance to feed deeply off the white mans guilt too.

And here I was going to try to stay positive and even festive what with x-mas being so close...

Oh well, "the best laid plans of mice and men", and all that.

Anti-contextual

"Every day... I can greedily, rightfully, seize every ticking moment, and never give one of them back."




"I don't live to live through anyone, ever."

On the surface these commercials are great. There is no equivocation, the sense of life is individualistic and unapologetic. They are classy and they appeal to the kind of strength of character that accepts such ideals... On the surface.

But context is important and in this case the context includes the fact that this company just received one of the most massive bailouts in history. That this is the second such bailout for this company in the last 30 years.

I don't think that these rather Objectivist appeals to individualism are an accident either. Atlas Shrugged is poised to have its best selling year to date, Tea Parties protesting the largest expansion of the welfare state in the US since the "New Deal" were held across the country.

The company is most definitely trying to appeal to that backlash, and it is just as fervently hoping that you and I and all the rest of the people out there don't notice their hypocrisy. They are counting on their audience being as anti-contextual as they are.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh," they say... "forget the bailout... Forget the fact that your choices made us unable to survive on our own so we told the government to force you to support us. Forget that this already happened in 1979, forget that to us the ideas in these commercials are just a crass advertising ploy"... Yes, forget all that...

But then maybe that is the point, and part and parcel of their problem. As long as this company, and others like it remain anti-contextual themselves, as long as individualism, self reliance and rational self interest are only marketing gimmicks to them, then they are doomed to be moochers, looters, scavengers and thugs, taking the money they are not worthy of earning by force and denying us our freedom and choice through the barrel of a government gun.

Are We There Yet?

“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
Ayn Rand

If you read the news today or have been reading it for the last while you are virtually assaulted by the systemic use of tax money to bail out here, or subsidize there. The workers cry out for it, the Unions beg for it, the businessmen complain that they can not survive without it and the politicians dole it out.

When this is done a majority of consumers sagely nod their heads, Unions and businessmen grimly set their jaws and make a show of “getting to work” and Politicians on the left and on the right preach the gospel of regulation, control and “social responsibility”.

It’s systemic, invasive, pervasive and sickening.

So, as the title of this post asks… Are we there yet? Is it necessary for honest rights respecting folks to be criminals in order to live their lives as men?

Your Money

Stolen from you. Given to Them.

Circling the drain.

Questions?

Obama's Smackdown

Thank you Anne Wortham.

H/T mpt's Web Site

NEWSFLASH!!!

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A RIGHT TO A JOB!

People whine and bitch about the contractually assured bonuses of CEO's and the government eggs them on... then there's this.

From the article:

“What makes me glum about it all is that it's extremely difficult to get around the political necessity of subsidizing employment at an extraordinarily high cost per job..."

WTF is there to 'get around'? How about the concept that government is not, was not, and was never intended to ensure anyone, at any time, for any reason, was employed! It's not their job!

I'll say it again... There is no such thing as a right to a job! The only thing government should be ensuring is individual rights and that isn't on the list.

$1.5 million per job holy freaking deficits Batman! We would actually save money by just giving each and every GM employee a million dollars!

This isn't capitalism, this isn't conservatism, this isn't even rational.

Make Them Say IT

Out Loud!


The good Dr. is quickly becoming one of my favorites...

Good.

This is a good news story. The only way it could be better is if it would lead automatically to personal responsibility, but I fear that isn't going to be.

"Status matters, because all our funding is tied to how many status Indians we have in our nation," said Beaver, 69, whose 1,000-member community expects to see its last status Indians born in 2032.

Do these people hear themselves when they talk? When the rest of Canada is worried about industries and companies going out of business, and keeping their jobs. When the concern of rural communities is their children moving away to find work in the bigger cities these people are worried about being cut off from the federal teat.

When the majority of Canadians are worried about being able to work for what they need these people are worried about having to work for what they need.

We don't need status Indians, or status anyone else for that matter. We need all individuals in this country treated exactly the same regardless of birth, race, creed or colour.

JUST THINKING: By the way Chief, if you want to keep the land your band currently squats on let your people buy property and have property rights.

The government of Canada recognizes property rights in principal if not explicitly (see the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and would certainly allow you to own the land you occupy... Of course you'd have to join the rest of the country and pay taxes for it.

Robbing Harper - Steals From You to Give To Them

So now my money is going to be given out to Kids in the Caribbean so that they can go to university in Canada paid for by my taxes?

WTF?

I might sound insensitive here but perhaps these countries should be putting their own students through fricking university and my money should be left in my pocket so I can put MY two kids through university.

I find myself looking forward to the next election, and wondering if these guys have a candidate in my riding...

Let the Shrugging Begin...

Dear Mr. Liddy...

"I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down."

That's depressing, but the most depressing thing was that this guy berates Libby for not standing up to Congress and then folds like a cheap suit saying he'll donate all his hard earned pay to charity.

Think about it...

The very idea that led to his betrayal by his company and his government in the first place is the idea that his success, his effort and his skill is an embarrassment!

The concept being snuck into this equation is that because he is skilled, driven and successful he owes "those suffering from the global economic downturn"! Because he is able, successful, smart, productive and driven his entire life is mortgaged!!!

What a travesty.

He should have given the whole lot a single finger salute and moved himself and his entire family to some Caribbean tax haven till the US comes back to it's senses, capitalism, the constitution and the rule of law.

Contract? What Contract?

What happened to contract law in the USA?

"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says 15 employees who received some of the largest bonuses from American International Group have agreed to return more than $30 million US worth of payments."

America...
Land of the fleeced, home of the berated.

"Cuomo said he doesn't plan to release the names of the employees who agreed to return the bonuses, and said there is no implied threat that if an employee doesn't consent to returning the bonus that their name will be released.

Cuomo had sought the names of the employees who received bonuses from Liddy through a subpoena. He said his office is continuing to assess the security of the employees."

Yeah, Riiiiiiiight...

Link

Once Upon a Time...

"Canadian actors made a case for new media funding at a hearing today before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

The performers helped kick off the first day of hearings on regulating online content by urging the CRTC to make Internet service providers follow the same rules as television and radio broadcasters and protect Canadian content online.

"This is a battle for the future. What we want is a place for Canadian storytellers and our stories," said Richard Hardacre national president of ACTRA"

Link

Here's a story for you.

Once upon a time Canadians had one small piece of freedom left, it was called the internet. Then some whiny ingrate, wannabe "artist" hack and his can't-make-a-living-without-subsidies looser friends tried to screw that up too.

You want people to pay attention to "Canadian Art"? Consistently make something worth looking at, watching and listening to.

Oh, and failing that you can still keep your greasy hands of my internet!

Self-sentencing Circle

Aboriginals in Canada are a people apart. Apart from the society they live in or, more rightly outside of. We as a nation have in our quest to be ever more progressive and inclusive embraced the native culture. We've allowed the existence of stone-age governance within our own borders, permitted the fabricated "tradition" and the folksy shamanism of the sentencing circle to replace justice and a judicial system developed and codified for thousands of years.

The result is that another circle has been created, lets call it the vicious self-sentincing circle.

The headline reads "The 'national disgrace of aboriginal housing", it lists a litany of what are (and should be) disgraceful conditions in a first world country. The presence of mould, a shortage of housing, poor designs, shoddy construction, overcrowding, fire deaths. The question being asked is why?

Then, if you read further into the article you see more problems...

"- Space and money shortages on most coastal reserves that prevent bands from building the homes they desperately need.

- Confusing funding formulas that deter many bands from applying for intersecting government grants, subsidies and loans.

- Problems collecting rent on reserves that force bands into financial ruin because they can't pay the mortgages.

- Poor maintenance and a lack of pride in homes."

Hear that sound? No it's not the rain, or snow, it's the dropping of contexts.

Space and money shortage - Oops, someone is being sneaky here. these are two completely unrelated issues. Let's look at the space issue first. Seems to imply that the places where these people live are overcrowded. Funny, I don't think I've ever seen a reserve where the residents were packed into the land like people are packed into a Calcutta slum. Come to think of it, I seem to remember a historical fact that while the walls of the city of Rome only measured 10 square kilometers there were a million people living within them, now that is crowded. For that matter Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are more crowded in terms of bdies per square kilometer. The reserves? Not so much.

Shortage of money - Ten billion, yes billion with a "B" is transferred from the federal government to Native Bands every year in Canada. The native population is estimated at 1.2 million. A little simple math will tell you that $8333 per year is spent on every native man woman and child in Canada. And that figure is not really representative of those on the reserve because I took the total population of aboriginal people in Canada and not just the ones on reserves. Money shortage? I don't think so.

Confusing funding formula's - Excuse me? Lets say for a microsecond I actually have no problem with the federal government stealing my hard earned money and giving it to other people, I still have to ask WTF? My taxes are complicated, I have to do those. Now since they are so complicated what do I do? I hire someone who's job it is to know how to do them, to figure out how I can comply with government red tape and "confusing funding formulas"

Don't apply because the process is too hard? Give me a freaking break! I can imagine the conversation now...

"I'm sorry Suzie, Jimmy, but the band thought that the funding formula was too confusing so, sorry, no clean water or safe housing for you. We're really sorry, but maybe if you die in a house fire or get TB you can still be a horrible statistic."

I'll come back to the money later...

Problems collecting rent - Poor maintenance and lack of pride - Wait a second, you mean to tell me that there is a problem collecting rent from people who in most cases are not allowed by custom to have any proprietary claim or connection to the homes they live in?

Are you saying that when housing is allotted by the arbitrary whim of some outmoded form of stone age governance that people do not feel compelled to honour their responsibilities?

You mean that giving people housing and paying them because of their ethnicity, out of some unfounded guilt hasn't fostered a work ethic or led to responsible citizenship even within their own communities?

Huh? Who would have thunk it?

Getting back to the money...

I just found an interesting statistic... "According to the 1996 Census, approximately 225 000 Indians live on reserves and other Indian settlements, while 60% of Indians live elsewhere." So lets say for the sake of argument that another 100,000 natives have been born or moved onto reserves in the last 12 years, (that is a gross overestimation and we both know it) that gives us a total of 325,000 natives living on reserves. Now, lets take that 10 billion dollars and see what we get.

Are you ready for this?

And the grand total of government spending on each and every aboriginal man woman and child is...

Thirty thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine dollars and twenty three cents.

I think I'm going to be ill.

Hold on, I'm going to break this down a little further. 365 Days in a year... minus 104 weekend days = 261

Minus two weeks holidays = 251

Minus stat holidays (call it another 10 days per year) = 241 days.

$30,769.23 divided by 241 = $127.67 a day or for an 8 hour work day = $15.95 an hour.

We are paying every native man woman and child living on a reserve $15.95 an hour just for being aboriginal. That looters, moochers, wastrels wage is $6.45 OVER Ontario's minimum wage.

Disgusting.

But the whole question of how much we are paying is dropping the most important context of all, that we pay in the first place.

The truth of this situation is that my life, my work and my effort is mortgaged. To claim that I live in a capitalist society is a sham. My productive effort is not my own, I am a wage slave to people like these. My government views me as some sort of sacred calf, to be bled for the benefit of others.

The cause and effect (getting back to my long forgotten title) are circular.

When I work I make money that helps me live and have a good life. I get satisfaction out of a job well done and I feel good about myself and because I like that feeling I try to work harder, be better and earn more to feed my self-esteem.

Then the government steps in and takes my money telling me that it's for the "common good". This doesn't make me feel very good, and although I am not one, I understand some people actually don't work harder because they would just end up paying the government more... Already I'm seeing a problem, but I digress...

Then the government takes my money (and dealing with the subject at hand) and gives it to a specific race of people at a rate that makes those people ask the question "Why work?" and so many don't.

So without productive work they achieve little, the satisfaction of supporting themselves by the labour of their own minds and bodies is gone, and along with it their self- esteem.

Soon there is no incentive, and because these people are identifyable by race and a perverse form of national and self isolation from the rest of our society they resent the society that props them up.

But instead of attacking the root cause, (the unearned) they demand more money, illogically comming to the conclusion that it's not that the money has robbed them of their self worth but that they are worth far more, that the money they get now is not enough...

And so you have it... the vicious self-sentencing circle.

If You're Happy and You Know It,

Clank Your...

"In Reich's worldview, it's groups that matter and individualism that's the enemy. "The American myth of the triumphant individual may have outlasted its time," Reich has explained. "The story of the little guy who works hard, takes risks, believes in himself and eventually earns wealth, fame and honor" is outmoded.

Instead, "we must begin to celebrate collective entrepreneurship," states Reich. In place of individuals who "buck the odds" with "drive and guts," Reich argues for a world where the central planners right the wrongs, determine the production, distribute the rewards in a "fair" manner, i.e., with "only modest differences in income," and knock the rough edges off anyone who doesn't demonstrate sufficient obedience to the collective."

H/T West