1Declaration: Free Markets, Free People, Free Minds

Numerous times I have explored the depths that are anthropogenic global warming - that is human induced emissions for those not of the scientific persuasion. I have mentioned numerous times that global warming is not a result of human activity or at least not the primary or secondary reason, essentially that it is highly exaggerated.

The reason for the global warming alarmism by Al Gore and other men and women of little understanding on the issue is not for the well meaning intentions they portray. Instead it is to start a sort of cultural revolution to destroy the United States capitalist economy further, portray the need for the protection of the collective by spreading fear to remove individual rights, and aggregate power in the hands of a professional, expert government that can make society dependent and therefore easier to control.

Global warming alarmists have set out to dismiss and completely dismantle the careers of those who oppose global warming. Al Gore has concluded that global warming is a proven reality and those who do not believe should be dismissed and removed from the scene. Some have even threatened to sue nonbelievers.

Change of Position

I am far from the only one who doubts the validity of anthropogenically caused global warming.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

This is a monumental change in position that without doubt will cause much controversy among the political sphere of global warming alarmists like Al Gore. Their livelihood is wrapped up in the spreading of fear in order to garner themselves political and monetary power. This change in position or at least opening for debate proves without a doubt that anthropogenic global warming is still a highly controversial and debated field in academia and among research scientists and intellectuals.

Why the Change?

Al Gore as we all know created a move, Inconvenient Truth, that created a surge in support for the idea of global warming. The APS now has reasons to doubt man made global warming with the publishing of a report by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which finds that the "climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate." A professor at Hartford, Larry Gould, has called the paper "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and '/extensive errors'."

The APS has also found other evidence that I have pointed to in the past here that the reason for warming is more likely due to increased solar activity.

Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."

Clearly the debate on the validity of anthropogenic global warming is not as clear cut as Al Gore has made it out to be. Before we take drastic actions that will be of great detriment to the US and world economies we need more debate on this highly controversial subject. The call by Al Gore for America to go 100% green within 10 years is absurd, unrealistic, and economic suicide!

Sources

Primary: DailyTech - Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Other articles:
New York Times: Gore Urges Change to Dodge and Energy Crisis
Guardian: Put oil firm chiefs on trial
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
Science Daily: Warm Coronal Loop Offers Clue to Mysteriously Hot Solar Atmosphere
Tennesse Center for Policy Research: Al Gore's Personal Energy Consumption Up 10%

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When deciding who to vote for this year I encourage everyone of you to look towards the Libertarian Party, what TIME Magazine has labeled in a recent article as A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe. The idea of libertarianism really became prominent during the Ron Paul campaign.

Maybe you haven't heard, but this is the year of freedom. First there was the Ron Paul revolution, in which an avuncular 10-term Representative from Brazoria County, Texas, raised more than $34 million as a pseudo-Republican candidate, garnered more than a million primary votes and outperformed Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, all on the back of a get-government-off-my-back platform. Now there's the Libertarian Party, which sold a little bit of its hard-line liberty-loving soul in exchange for the most respectable candidate it has ever had: recently converted former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, who's polling nationally near 6% and could conceivably Naderize John McCain in a few key states and help nudge the presidency to Barack Obama.

In a year when no small government politician exists in the major 2 parties many Americans have turned their attention to the candidacy of Bob Barr. The proof is seen in the polling on Zogby's 50 State interactive map. Barr is polling in at 6% nationally, and is reaching double digits of support in some states.

If you are a true conservative and believe in smaller government, lower taxes, elimination of the IRS, and Liberty then Libertarian candidate Bob Barr is the choice for you. I urge you to strongly question your support of the Republican Party this year, a party that has lost its principles that is seeking governmental solutions to problems that government has created.

To find out more about Bob Barr visit BobBarr2008.com.

To finish reading the TIME article: Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe - TIME

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Well the title says it all. Today the FairTax article is the featured article on Wikipedia today. If you are not aware of what the FairTax is I encourage you to take a look at it.

Briefly, the FairTax is a proposal that would eliminate all corporate taxes which stifle economic and job growth, payroll taxes (MediCare, Security, and etc.), death taxes, gift taxes, and more that occupies over 95,000 pages of rules and regulations. The current tax system stifles hard work, saving, investing, places an average of 22% embeded tax rate in the average consumer product (remember that corporations do not pay taxes we do, every tax that is put on a corporation gets passed on to the consumer in this embeded tax rate), and keeps monies out of the US market due to penalizing forms of taxation.

Unlike the income tax, the FairTax is a true tax on wealth. The FairTax would insititute a 23% tax rate on all final sales of new goods and services. This sounds like alot but remember that you would now be receiving your full paycheck every pay period which on average would increase the size of your paycheck by 25%. The FairTax encourages fiscal responsibility. Since there is no penalty for making sound financial investments you can save until your heart is content with no tax burden.

Some of you may point out that it is a regressive tax. Well the FairTax has taken care of this by instituting a monthly prebate for taxes that would be incurred on spending up to the poverty line (family size and state of residence is taken into account) and adjusted for inflation yearly (for actual numbers on the prebate click here). The prebate would be sent to every citizen of the US. The prebate means that those who do not spend above the poverty level will not be taxed. Those who spend at twice the poverty level will pay a rate of 11.5% and so on. The more you spend the more you pay. Once again the FairTax encourages fiscal responsibility by decreasing tax rate on more responsible spending thanks to the prebate.

Best of All

The FairTax would eliminate the IRS, tax audits, investigations into your private matters by the US government (something the founders originally envisioned in the Constitution until the income tax amendment was added - 16th Amendment), eliminate the costly process (time and monetary) of tax preparation each year, and get rid of April 15th for good. You would never have to stand in line for hours at the post office again and all the confusing tax forms would be relegated to distant memories of governmental abuse and oppresion.

For more on the FairTax visit my series on the FairTax from March, April, and May of 2008.

For more information and how you can help the FairTax passed aside from visiting Wikipedia you can visit FairTax.org. Then become a citizen co-sponser at JohnLinder.com.

Make your Declaration and let your representatives know that you want them to support the FairTax.

Ludwig von Mises was born on September 29, 1881 in Austria. He was an Austrian economist and philosopher in addition to being one of the main intellectuals of the start of the modern libertarian movement. He was forced to flee Austria due to his Jewish heritage and eventuall found himself in New York City as a visiting professor at New York University until 1969 and dies 4 years later in 1973. Today he has an economic institute dedicated to his memory and the free market principles he proposed. I encourage you to visit the Ludwig von Mises Institute's website to find out more.

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.
--Ludwig von Mises

Liberals, fascists, communists, and more generally statists, (note: I will refer to this whole group as the left in the remainder of this post), for all they are worth seem to reject the idea that the government that serves best that serves least. This is the opposite of Libertarians and for the most part conservatives who are a bit hypocritical in my view on their idea of smaller government as they fall into government intervention due to the moral weakness of men. Liberals are a bit confused as well in their policies that create bigger government.

The left believes that people upon their own free will and choice cannot achieve in lifeso government must fill those deficiencies with government programs. Those who have achieved some measure of success are generally viewed upon as statistical anomalies that have achieved their status through deceptive practices and greed. To be fair many conservatives believe in government intervention to force what they deem morally straight decisions because people left to their own devices will engage in morally weak decisions like gay marriage, abortion, drug use and the like.

In turn since all success or proper choice is a mere statistical anomaly under the pretenses that people if left to their own devices will not be able to sustain themselves either partially or fully because man is fallible or lacking moral strength to engage in wholesome activities or choices then government must intervene.

Questionable Logic

If man is fallible and unable to make personal moral decisions then how is the government able to make such decisions? If success is a statistical anomaly how can government achieve success for the collective? These are the questions that must be asked when a politician of the left or socially conservative right tell you that government must intervene.

These questions derive from the logic that government is not made up of demigods or noble men. Instead government is controlled by fallible men and woman with questionable moral judgment. This idea does not seem to be accepted by the groups who push for more governmental control but the logic is irrefutable.

Examples can be made all over the world. In an attempt to get health care for all countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and many others in Europe have adopted nationalized health care systems. The systems have largely been a failure delivering lower quality health care to individuals, governmental bureaucracies deciding if individuals should receive treatment, and thousands of canceled surgeries each month. The People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国) ruled with an iron fist for decades from the Communist takeover in 1949 by Mao Zedong (毛泽东）and the country by in large achieved equality of society but with the end result being poverty and suffering (note that these are the results of socialism when attempting to create a more equal society) until Deng Xiaoping (邓小平）took office became the leader in 1978. Deng realized that a government controlled economy had failed because it could not compete or produce goods in an economically viable fashion. Deng instituted changes that resulted in a capitalist based economy with less governmental control and privatized industry encouraged. Today China has the fastest growing economy in the world with yearly growth rates from 8-11% for the past 20+ years.

Look at another Communist country Cuba. This can be summed up by the quote on my homepage by Paul Harvey. "They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?"

It is quite clear that the best way for government to uplift society and the economy is too step out. More regulations do not mean more equality. More regulations does not mean more Liberty. More government intervention does not make up for the fallibility or moral weakness of man. Why? Government is an invention of the fallible and morally weak man.

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.
--Ludwig von Mises

Libertarian Presidential nominee Bob Barr offers fierce criticism to Barack Obama's forced public service proposal. I for one could not agree more.

'Americans are among the most generous people on the planet and excel at serving one another,' says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate. 'Unfortunately, Sen. Barack Obama wants to turn service into a government requirement' by forcing middle, high school, and college students to work in federally approved jobs. 'But service must be an outgrowth of the heart to be life-changing for both parties. It isn’t possible to mandate generosity or coerce compassion,' Barr explains.

Public service is not strictly a formal function that can be done by only serving state or federal government. Service is about helping your fellow man and clearly Americans have done just that. Americans in the past year donated over $300 billion to help with numerous causes from international to domestic aid. Service does not end with monetary donations with millions of man hours each year put into volunteer organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, countless numbers of soup kitchens, and numerous religious organizations. Need I remind you of thousands of Americans helping those devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Rita including myself.

This country faces numerous other problems that cannot be fixed by forced governmental service. A Social Security system being bankrupted, out of control government spending, unconstitutional power grabs from the states, dwindling civil liberties, and welfare programs that hinder the poor from bringing themselves out of poverty. Not to mention a flawed income tax system that keeps the corrupt in power, puts American products at a disadvantage in the global market place, penalizes hard work and saving, encourages debt spending, and gives special interests a special voice that needs to be completely replaced with the Fair Tax.

Other problems are just as serious including a declining US dollar, high energy costs because of governmental regulation, declining public education at the hands of the teachers union, the NEA, and bloated, unconstitutional Department of Education, and the federal governments general disregard for the Constitution. The list can go on and on. Forced governmental service will be another governmental power grab that strips individual choice and Liberties. "'Washington politicians should not be telling schools across America how many hours their students should work, and in what kinds of jobs,' says Barr. 'The Founders displayed great genius when the framed the Constitution, because they limited the federal government to national problems while preserving state and local authority over such issues as education, including youth service.'"

Barr concludes:

Everyone agrees that service is a wonderful gift from those with much to those with little. But we should not sacrifice the great value of voluntary service by turning it into a government requirement.

The desire to serve others cannot be forced. It must come from the heart and soul of an individual. Compulsory service will only breed contempt and distrust for the government that mandates it. Americans are the most generous and service minded people in the world. A government mandate requiring service is an insult to those that have freely and willingly dedicated their life, time, or money in service of their fellow man or woman.

To read the rest of the article check out Barr's Blog: Bob Barr 2008 Blog » Blog Archive » Barr criticizes Obama’s national service proposal

When I mention the term global warming what first comes to your mind? You probably fall into two camps. 1) Some of you are thinking that Al Gore is a demigod and that global warming is the most dangerous threat to world civilization today. 2) The rest of you, myself included, have significant doubts or even speak out against anthropologically caused global warming.

Which group you fall into does not really matter because the global warming alarmism is not about saving the planet by the leaders who are pushing the agenda. The movement is solely about the acquisition of power, wealth, and to change the fundamental principles of the American way of life. I am not talking about transitioning towards renewable energies but instead about changing the fundamental principles of American society namely a greater movement towards government controlled society for the benefit of the collective.

As an avid follower and researcher of Chinese politics one cannot help but notice the similarities between the Chinese Cultural Revolution starting in May of 1966. The Cultural Revolution was started by Mao Zedong (毛泽东）in an effort to throw off the final elements of bourgouis oppression to complete the revolutionary class struggle. The effort was actaully a movement to sure up his support against the growing power of rivals Deng Xiaoping （邓小平）and Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇).

In much the same way the environmentalists like Chairman Mao have created a warlike environment and spread fear in order to achieve their goals of greater socialism and government control. By creating this warlike environment these people have created a situation that those who speak out against their movement by spreading sound scientific findings to dispute the rhetoric of environmentalists and liberals more generally. This has been a tactic of the left for nearly a centuy.

In order to create a socialistic or fascistic society liberals have been forced to create a hostile environment that will mobilize society to take action because individuals who do not feel threatened will do not easily succomb to these political whims. President Woodrow Wilson jailed over 200,000 US citizens, political prisoners, who questioned our involvement in World War I. FDR used WWII to bring in a new brand of socialism that was known as the New Deal that we still suffer from today (Jonah Goldberg has a great chapter in his book, Liberal Fasicsm about this subject). President LBJ established a god like history of JFK to create a war like environment to move foward his own desires for more power with his Great Society plan, once again which has proven to be a failed program that has increased the national debt and not resolved the social problems that it was imagined to.

Al Gore has continued this legacy and has become a mulitmillionare virtually overnight by spreading fear. He has created an environment where people can no longer speak freely without the possibility of being ostracized without their political or scientific career being in jeopardy. This seems remarably similar to Wilson's jailing of political dissidents who questioned our involvement in World War I.

Global warming is not about solving environmental problems that are still highly debated in the academic sphere. Instead it is about acruing more power for the government at the hands of the individuals and groups that spread the rhetoric to regulate society and strip individual liberties. This movement is largely sponsored by the fascistic left and of the "progressive" right in an attempt to further regulate society into a movement for the collective and solidify their hold on power.