It Once Was Good

Walking to work. It once was good, but no more.
Riding a horse to work. It once was good, but no more.
Taking a carriage to work. It once was good, but no more.
Taking a streetcar to work. It once was good, but no more.
Taking a car to work. It works for now.

Things change. Just because something used to be good, does not mean that it always will be. Someday, some type of mass transit will replace the private car in many areas.

Get a job. Join a Union. It once was good, but no more.

Things change. Unions had a place during the early industrial revolution as workers moved from the field to the factory. Most early factory workers were uneducated and uninformed. Employment laws had not yet caught up with the move from an agrarian rural lifestyle to one based around big, urban employers. Workers needed to band together to protect against unfair and unjust treatment. The Unions worked.

But worker protection is no longer the primary goal of the Unions. Money, politics and control of the worksite are now the most important things to the Union bosses. Unions are the primary tool of the progressive/socialists in achieving their goal of wealth redistribution. The "good of the worker" is merely a campaign slogan to increase the dues co-opted from the membership in order to be able to finance the real objectives of the Union bosses.

Workers are no longer uneducated and uninformed. There are more than enough laws on the books to protect workers today. Unions should be allowed to exists as any other organization is allowed to exist. However, all laws favoring Unions and giving them special powers should be repealed. Just as I pay dues to the NRA and NESA, I can pay dues to a Union if I want to. However, my membership in the NRA has nothing to do with whether I can work for a certain company, and my employer certainly does not have to deduct my NESA dues from my paycheck.

A letter to my Senator

December 13, 2010

The Honorable Richard Shelby

United States Senate

Washington, D.C. 20510-0103

RE: Your letter dated November 29, 2010

Dear Senator Shelby,

Thank you for responding to my letter concerning federal spending and earmarks. I appreciate your need to “bring home the bacon” to your constituents in Alabama, and you have certainly been successful over your career in doing just that. However, the spending in Washington must stop. Every time Congress votes to spend more money (i.e. grow the government), we the people lose more of our liberty. That loss comes through more regulation and/or higher taxes. Every time. No exceptions.

The problem with earmarks is not that you are simply allocating money already “spent” to your pet projects, but that in many instances the earmarks are added to other legislation in order to entice those voting on the bills to vote in favor of a bill that otherwise they would vote against. If a project has merit, then craft your bill and bring it to the floor for a vote. If you want to increase funding for national security, rural health care, secondary education, and law enforcement and drought relief as you state in your letter, then vote on those items. It is shameful that these worthwhile projects have to be treated as bribes in order to get other unrelated legislation passed.

The problem with our government is not a shortage of taxes. It is spending. Spending will never be reduced until men of character are willing to give up their pork in order to show others the more patriotic way! Because of the severe shortage of character in Washington, I pray that you will support a Balanced Budget Amendment when it comes before the U.S. Senate. As was evidenced by the recent election, the American People want Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free-market Capitalism. If you are not willing to fight for these three things, then I ask that you do the patriotic thing and resign from the U.S. Senate. If you are willing to fight to save our economy and our country, then may God Bless You.

Sincerely,

Quotes by an Economist and Patriot

Famous quotes by economist and patriot Milton Friedman. My favorite is at the bottom.

"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."

"Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property."

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."

"So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not"

"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom."

"Most economic fallacies derive - from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another."

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."

"What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system"

"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both."